Gender diversity critical to good business, Hong Kong’s 10 top female financiers say on International Women’s Day
- At the entry level, the financial sector is filled with women, but few have managed to climb to the top of the corporate ladder
- Regulatory changes, company and family support and flexible working arrangements among key issues that need to be addressed for more women to break the glass ceiling: 10 leading women executives in Hong Kong
Hong Kong must do more to promote women, according to the city’s top female financial executives.
While at the entry level the sector is filled with women, few have managed to climb to the top of the corporate ladder. As of 2018, the sector had 263,000 employees, or 7 per cent of the Hong Kong workforce, and made up 20 per cent of the city’s economy. And while 52 per cent of junior staff were women, only a third in management were female, according to a study by PwC. Women made up an even smaller number – 20 per cent – when it came to director level roles.
Eighteen women chief executives (CEOs) at financial companies such as HSBC, Citibank and Standard Chartered came together informally in 2016 to arrange talks and other activities that would encourage more women to break the glass ceiling in the sector.
On this International Women’s Day, regulatory changes, company and family support and flexible working arrangements were among key issues that needed to be addressed for this to happen, according to the Hong Kong financial industry’s 10 leading women executives.
Laura Cha Shih May-lung, chairwoman, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX)
A lawyer by training, Cha is the first woman to chair Hong Kong’s stock exchange operator. She worked at the city’s securities regulator – the Securities and Futures Commission – before being invited to serve as the first woman vice-chair of the China Securities and Regulatory Commission from 2001 to 2004.
