THE GUY CHAMPIONING GENDER DIVERSITY ON COMPANY BOARDS: Lawrence Loh, 56, NUS Business School associate professor and director of the Centre for Governance, Institutions and Organisations

Associate professor Lawrence Loh’s mission is to wake businesses to the reality that it’s in their self-interest to hire more women business leaders, a finding based on science and data research.

“We found that the more women directors you have on the board, the better the corporate governance performance. And the latter results in better financial performance,” he says, citing the findings of the gender diversity study (published in February) completed by his team at the NUS Business School’s Centre for Governance, Institutions and Organisations. The takeaway: Companies should make a conscious effort to seek out individuals, including women who have the right attributes, and not discount them because they aren’t men.

Since publishing the study, he has spoken with the press and on panels to educate corporations on his findings. And he partnered with the Diversity Action Committee (DAC), an advocacy group comprising prominent members of the Singapore business community, to get the word out. According to DAC, the proportion of all-male boards in SGXlisted companies is 49 per cent as of June. That’s still a whole lot.

And while the professor is lecturing on the business aspects of academia, he wants to make real-world impact by providing information that corporations can put into practice – which the father of two says he’s already moving forward. Next up, he plans to look at the effects of gender diversity on other aspects of company processes such as sustainability (environmental, social and governance issues) and business integrity (anti-corruption).