WHEN Stanley Motta listed on the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE) in 2018, it bucked a trend in the history of public companies in Jamaica — it had a board which was made up entirely of women. Five years later in 2023, it retained that structure, a board with 100 per cent women directors, chaired by Melanie Subratie. But that feat has not started a push to involve more women in decision-making of public companies in Jamaica.

In fact, while an estimated three out of four graduates from tertiary institutions are women, and more women are attaining management positions in Jamaica, at the boardroom level, their representation shows much of the vestiges of the old boys’ network still exist.

Our research show that of all the public-listed companies in Jamaica, only 27 per cent of the directors were women, according to the latest available information gleaned from each company’s annual report. That was a slight improvement from the 26 per cent of women who made up boards on listed companies in 2018.

This means that during the last five years, female representation in publicly listed companies has risen by 1 percentage point. Although this statistic shows movement in the right direction, corporate Jamaica has been slow to reach a proportionate balance between men and women in the boardroom.

In the United States, women make up 29 per cent of boards. In the United Kingdom, that figure was 40 per cent, while in Japan women account for 15.5 per cent of directors in the boardroom.

Still, though women make up only 27 per cent of the boardroom in Jamaica, the research shows that 40 per cent of the boards of the three largest financial companies by market capitalisation were women directors. These three companies are Sagicor Group, Scotia Group and the NCB Financial Group. Massy Holdings, which is larger than each of the three by market capitalisation, had women making up just over 14 per cent of its board.

In addition, 28 per cent of the boards of the 10 largest companies by market capitalisation was made up of women, just 1 percentage point more than the average for public companies.

Of note, was that seven companies — Barita Investments, Equity Mortgage Investment Corporation, Knutsford Express, KLE Group, Mayberry Investments, Margaritaville Turks, and QWI Investments — had no women in their boardrooms.

As pointed out earlier, Stanley Motta has an all-women board. Key Insurance Limited has the second-highest percentage of women on its board, with seven of its 10 board members being women. Third, with four out of six, or 67 per cent of its board being women is Pulse Investments.

Additionally, of all the companies listed, we found only five were chaired by women. Surely, Stanley Motta with an all-woman board is chaired by a woman. The other four are iCreate Limited, Scotia Group, Image Plus and FosRich.

A further statistic to note is that of the almost 100 companies listed on the JSE, only eight have at least half of their directors being women. These are Stanley Motta, Key Insurance, Image Plus Consultants, Pulse Investments, Scotia Group, Fontana Limited, The Limners and Bards Limited, and Caribbean Assurance Brokers Limited.

But why is there such a paucity of women in the board. Ricardo Allen, CEO of One-on-One Educational Services, told the Jamaica Observer that it all comes down to who fund companies, especially at the start.

“When we go out to seek investments for our companies to start, invariably those providing the funding are almost always men, and for the funding, they request a seat on the board. Even in situations where a woman might fund a company at the start, she may nominate a man to represent her interest,” Allen continued.

Allen said he is in the process of adding at least two women to his board. He was sharing his experience and that of the slew of new companies which started in the last decade or so, and have listed on the JSE. So what about companies with longer histories? Efforts to get a response for this story proved futile.

Yet, even though the international trend is to push for more women in the boardroom, and while it is encouraged, at least one women board member said she doesn’t believe that boards should include women just for the sake of it.

“International best practices in corporate governance, and also the Jamaica Corporate Governance Code, encourage diversity on boards including skill sets, age, and gender. Boards should identify the skills required on the board and seek potential candidates with the requisite skills and appoint the best candidate with the skill irrespective of gender or age,” Julie James, director of TransJamaican Highway, told Sunday Finance.

Denise Gallimore, an executive at Eppley, added that while she knows that there are imbalances between men and women in director positions in companies, the challenges she sees do not come from gender or misogyny, but instead are from the quality of work.