04 October 2018

Singapore, 4 October 2018 – StarHub has bagged the top honours in Asia Pacific for Gender Equality, and is ranked fifth globally amongst corporate stalwarts such as General Motors and L’Oreal in Equileap’s list of the world’s top 200 companies, leading the way in gender equality. Equileap is the leading organisation providing data and insights on gender equality in the corporate sector.

Unlike any other equality research, this is the world’s first in-depth cross-sector ranking which examines gender equality in over 3,000 companies with a market capitalisation above USD 2 billion in 23 developed countries. Research was done across all sectors based on public information. The research investigates 19 gender equality criteria including; leadership, career development, work-life balance, equal pay, family leave and health & safety.

Just five companies in the overall list had specific data backing a claim of gender pay equality in the top, middle and bottom pay bands. These include StarHub in Singapore, Agilent Technologies and General Motors in the USA, Enbridge in Canada and Link Administration in Australia. Separately, 28 companies in the data set showed no overall gender pay gap in the company, with StarHub being one of two companies that achieved both measures.

Veronica Lai, StarHub’s Chief Corporate Officer received the award for Top in Asia Pacific at the awards ceremony in London.

“It is our privilege and honour to be recognised as the leader in Asia Pacific in advocating gender equality. Women still face challenges in the workplace, so it is important that we recognise and support their aspirations both at work and at home. Only then can we retain and develop the best talent for the company’s growth. This recognition will spur us to continue advocating that gender equality is not only beneficial for women, it is also ultimately advantageous for businesses,” said Ms Lai.

Currently, there are three female directors out of 11 (or 27%) on StarHub’s Board of Directors. This is significantly higher than the average representation of board seats held by women at Singapore’s top 100 listed companies (14.7%).1 Ms Ng Shin Ein is the latest female director to join the StarHub Board on 17 September 2018.

 

1 Diversity Action Committee Singapore, Women’s Representation on SGX-listed Companies Boards as at Jun 2018, www.diversityaction.sg/statistics/as-at-jun-2018/