To legally mandate a minimal ratio of female members of board of directors may bring about apparent benefits to listed companies as well as their current and potential employees. But most listed companies have a controlling shareholder which may compromise the effort to promote gender diversity in board. The relative shortage in the supply of qualified female candidates may also hinder the actual implementation of such a legal mandate.  A few institutional designs informed by law and economics and practice in overseas market are therefore suggested in the talk to pave the way for issuing and implementation of such a legal mandate.

About the Speaker:

Ruoying Chen is Associate Professor at Peking University Law School.

She was Program Affiliate Scholar at the Classical Liberal Institute at NYU Law School, Dean’s Research Fellow at UNSW Business School, and the John. M. Olin Fellow in Law & Economics at the University of Chicago Law School.  She’s a visiting professor at University of Chicago Law School, KU Leuven Faculty of Law, the Buchmann Faculty of Law of Tel Aviv University and Koç University Law School. She delivered the 2019 Dieter Heremans Lectures in Law and Economics in KU Leuven as the Global Professor at KU Leuven Faculty of Law. 

Previously, she worked for international law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in its Beijing and Hong Kong offices for over 5 years on M&As, capital market work, restructuring of China’s enterprises and the disposal of non-performing loans by Chinese banks.

She holds a J.S.D. degree from the University of Chicago, M.Juris degree from the University of Oxford and a Bachelor in Law from Peking University.

Discussant:

Jing Song is Associate Professor in Gender Studies Programme at The Chinese University of Hong Kong and Associate Researcher (by courtesy) at Shenzhen Research Institute, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Prof. Song studies gender and family issues with a focus on work and property in urbanization and migration, especially women’s entrepreneurship, family life, and social status as shaped by state and market. She has published in China Quarterly, Urban Studies, Journal of Contemporary China, Journal of Rural Studies, Work Employment and Society, China Review, Eurasian Geography and Economics, Population Space and Place, Journal of Comparative Family Studies, Housing Studies, etc. Her book Gender and Employment in Rural China was published by Routledge in 2017.   

The Law Society of Hong Kong has awarded this seminar 1 Continuing Professional Development (CPD) point.