Commitment to promoting diversity in the industry
New requirements help entrench transformation agenda
Transformation is an imperative for the country and therefore for the JSE, and as Africa’s largest stock exchange, the JSE has made some progress in this regard.
“As a country we have made strides when it comes to transformation but it is important to acknowledge that not enough has been done 23 years into our democracy. More needs to be done to advance transformation in the SA economy,” says JSE director of marketing and corporate affairs Zeona Jacobs.
Describing the JSE as the bedrock of the country’s financial markets, Jacobs says the organisation is committed to transforming SA’S capital markets. “Our focus is on transformation in how we run our own business and on influencing our broader ecosystem,”she says. This year the JSE amended its listing requirements to ensure that companies have policies in place to promote racial diversity at board level. These amendments were implemented alongside the King 4 report on corporate governance. Companies will have to report on their racial diversity policies from June 1 2018.
The amended listing requirements are twofold: companies must have a policy to promote racial diversity at board level and will need to report annually to shareholders on how they’ve applied that policy. Corporates are also expected to report on how they fared against voluntary targets. Listed companies will have to publish their BBBEE annual compliance report on their website and alert investors to this using the JSE’S news service.
Gender equality is of equal concern to the JSE, and in 2015 the organisation introduced listing requirements where companies must have a policy for the promotion of gender diversity at board level and disclose their performance against it.