Spending on gender equality measures can drive inclusion and help women overcome barriers to employment, entrepreneurship and leadership. “The UN puts the annual gender equality-focused spending deficit at USD360 billion. And this is where capital markets are perfectly positioned to help address,” explained Chan.

“Tools such as gender-focused indices, bonds and ETFs can connect investors with businesses that promote gender equality projects or that have gender diverse leadership teams,” she added. “And regulation can provide corporates with a target for their gender diversity journeys, helping facilitate the difficult task of changing mindsets and cultures.”

Chan’s words were echoed by other speakers at the event – which saw over 250 business leaders from various sectors in Hong Kong gather together to celebrate IWD and discuss the role of capital markets in driving gender equality.

(Image: Bonnie Y Chan, CEO of HKEX)

Kim-See Lim, International Finance Corporation’s Regional Director for East Asia and the Pacific, shared how the IFC is leveraging a number of financing methods to bring about change in emerging markets, illuminating the audience on the relatively new concept of ‘gender bonds’ – finance projects that promote women empowerment, gender equality and access to finance.

“Gender bonds are a growing and impactful tool in the sustainable debt market, promoting gender equality and offering private sector issuers benefits like market leadership, investor diversification, and potential inclusion on sustainability indices,” commented Lim. “Our gender bond investments aim to bridge the financing gap faced by women entrepreneurs, who own a third of MSMEs in developing countries.”

At the panel discussion, Katherine Ng, HKEX’s Head of Listing, highlighted how regulation can “plant the seed for the idea of gender diversity”, as she discussed the Exchange’s 2022 policy change that requires issuers to appoint at least one female board director by the end of 2024. “By asking issuers to put a woman on board, they will have to think about diversity and how to bridge that gap if they’re not there yet. Therefore, board diversity as a whole will improve.”

This has indeed been the case following the introduction of HKEX’s new policy in 2022: the percentage of female directors on boards of listed issuers in Hong Kong has increased to 17.7% from 14.4% in 2020, creating hundreds of new board positions for women. 

(Image: Kim-See Lim, Regional Director for East Asia and the Pacific, IFC)

Within the investment world, investors have been increasingly incorporating companies’ gender diversity credentials into their decisions as part of ESG investing. “To date the ‘environmental’ aspects of ESG have been more an investor focus. However, we are now seeing this broaden to a focus on ‘social’ aspects and gender diversity is a core part of this. While this is still early stage, the focus is getting traction and we expect this to increase in importance,” said Mille Cheng, Morgan Stanley’s Vice Chairman of Global Capital Markets, Asia Pacific.

One tool supporting investors on this journey is indices that provide exposure to gender diverse companies – for example, MSCI’s Japan Empowering Women Index (WIN). “WIN tracks the performance of Japanese companies that exhibit a commitment towards promoting and maintaining a high level of gender diversity among their workforce,” shared Michele Leung, MSCI’s Head of Greater China ESG & Climate. “It’s been very well received by the market, with Japan’s largest pension fund selecting it as benchmark for their ESG investment strategy.”

(Image, from left to right: Andrew Weir,  Regional Senior Partner of KPMG HK; Katherine Ng, Head of Listing at HKEX; Mille Cheng, Vice Chairman of Global Capital Markets Asia Pacific at Morgan Stanley; Michele Leung, Head of Greater China ESG & Climate at MSCI)