China is still leaving no space for women on company boards

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Of the 25 largest companies on the MSCI ACWI index without any female directors in 2020, 14 were Chinese

Hong Kong — Warren Buffett-backed carmaker BYD, Nike-rival Anta Sports Products and Nasdaq-listed retailer JD.com are all emblematic of the global heft of China’s companies. The Chinese giants have another thing in common: none of them have women on their boards.

“It’s quite apparent that we are very behind,” said Teresa Ko, a partner and China chair at the law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. A former chair of the Hong Kong stock exchange listing committee, she has called for the exchange to implement quotas requiring listed companies to add female directors within six years.

Boards in Western countries continue to be heavily dominated by men, but in recent years many companies have added more women in response to pressure from investors, regulators and consumers. At least for now, investors in some of China’s hottest companies don’t seem to be penalising them for having no female directors. Beijing-based electric-vehicle maker Li Auto raised $1.1bn in a Nasdaq initial public offering in July 2020, and EV rival XPeng followed in August with a $1.5bn IPO on the New York Stock Exchange.Yet there are solid business incentives for companies to promote gender diversity in the boardroom, according to an S&P Global report published in February.

 

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