Improving board diversity in the Philippines

IMPROVING board diversity is increasingly seen as contributing to good corporate governance, and its promotion has attracted good governance advocates as well as regulators. There had been studies that suggested that corporate boards structured along demographic diversity, such as gender, age, ethnicity, etc., contribute to the board's collective efficiency as well as protect the interests of shareholders and other stakeholders. While gender and independence have been the more popular indices of diversity, other factors, such as ethnicity, tenure, culture, international experience, and even age, are now being looked at as important contributors.

Mindful of this view, the Institute of Corporate Directors (ICD), through its Board Diversity Committee, did a study in the Philippine context on Board diversity at publicly listed companies (PLCs). The study covered PLCs registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as of 2019, 2020 and 2021, respectively, based on data collected from the PSE Edge Portal.