120 UNITED HAMPSHIRE US REIT Corporate Governance BOARD DIVERSITY POLICY AND COMPOSITION The Board endeavours to achieve the balance and diversity necessary to maximise its effectiveness, The NC believes that a wellbalanced Board fosters diversity viewpoints and insights, enriching decision-making. To achieve this, the Board has adopted a diversity policy which seeks to ensure that the Board is of the right size and comprises the right balance of skills, knowledge, experience and other aspects of diversity to support the Manager in the pursuit of its strategic and business objectives and its sustainable development. The policy seeks to promote the inclusion of different perspectives, ideas and insights and ensure that the Manager can benefit from all available sources of talent, taking into account the scope and nature of UHREIT’s operations. Under the Board Diversity Policy, the NC will assess the structure, size and skill set of the Board and report to the Board annually. In particular, the diversity of the Board is compared against the needs of UHREIT in order to meet its goals and targets, When sourcing for new Board members, diversity is a key criterion in the search. After interviewing the candidates, the NC will make its recommendations to the Board including appointments to the appropriate Board committees after matching the candidates’ skillsset to the needs of each Board committee. The Board, taking into account the views of the NRC, will consider if its Directors meet the criteria under its Board diversity policy and possess the necessary competencies to govern the Manager effectively. The Board presently comprises six directors, three of whom are IDs and all of whom are NEDs. The composition of the Board therefore complies with Provision 2.3 of the Code where majority of the Board is made up of NEDs and Provision 2.2 of the Code where majority of the board is made up of IDs. The NRC is of the view that, taking into account the nature and scope of UHREIT’s operations, the present Board size is appropriate and facilitates effective decision making while providing sufficient diverse views and opinions to UHREIT. Diversity of Skills In terms of diversity of skills, knowledge and professional experience, a skills matrix is used to help identify the requisite skills. The skills matrix below classifies the skills, knowledge and professional experience of existing Directors into several broad categories such as accounting, finance, legal, human resource, industry knowledge, financial markets, regulation, compliance, cybersecurity and technology, environmental, social and governance (ESG), and also where the skills, knowledge and professional experience were acquired or utilised geographically. This skills matrix is reviewed annually to determine gaps between the needs of UHREIT and the Manager.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTM2MDQ5