10 February 2015, Tuesday

The Diversity Action Committee (DAC) and Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) organised a roundtable session to gather institutional investors’ insights on ‘Board Diversity, Director Nomination, and Shareholder Value’.  The participants included international and local institutional investors, and organisations with interest in corporate governance.

The roundtable discussion was led by Jun Frank, the Head of Asia ex-Japan Research at ISS. The participants unanimously agreed that strong boards with diverse but relevant skills and experience result in better company performance.

Concluding that investors are increasingly paying attention to these topics, the key recommendations were:

• There should be a strong and “truly independent” element on the board.
• Companies should be more transparent in disclosing its diversity policies and setting measurable objectives.
• Nominating committees should put in place a diversity policy in their terms of reference.