In many developed markets, the company secretary plays much more than a compliance role, and can be like a chief governance officer of a company. In other markets, such as Malaysia, the role and expectations of the company secretary have continued to be enhanced as the Malaysian Code on Corporate Governance has evolved. The consultation on the current review of the Code in Malaysia has proposed a further raising of the bar for the company secretary.
In contrast, this has not been the case in Singapore, where there has been relatively little attention on the role of the company secretary in the Code. With some minor exceptions in larger companies, the company secretary in Singapore, even in listed issuers, is still largely viewed as a compliance officer, rather than as a governance advisor.
This preliminary study, based on data on appointments and cessations, is one of the first, if not the first, study of company secretaries of SGX-listed issuers in Singapore. It is published by the Centre for Investor Protection.
A future study of all company secretaries in SGX-listed issuers, which looks deeper into the corporate secretarial function of SGX-listed issuers, including roles, qualifications and experience of company secretaries, is planned.
