Allyship in Action: Building Inclusive Organisations in the Digital Sector

Most conversations about gender equality in digital realities focus on what women need to do differently: how to build confidence, expand networks, make achievements more visible, prepare for leadership. This framing, however, is structurally limited. Women cannot be expected to carry the responsibility for removing barriers they did not create.

This webinar session, moderated by Luciano Pollastri, global talent director for Amadeus, with guest speakers Roberta Scrofani, Engin Büker and Lina Nardone, examined what allyship looks like when it moves from statement to practice for organisations of very different sizes and sectors.

Requirements for allyship

Allyship is not an identity someone claims by expressing support for equality, but becomes meaningful when it influences decisions, and in particular the small ones: who is invited into a conversation? Whose contribution is attributed correctly? Who receives sponsorship rather than advice? Who gets the benefit of the doubt? These are the moments where allyship either operates or does not.

For men specifically, allyship does not mean speaking on behalf of women, occupying more space than has been created, or positioning oneself as the protagonist of gender equality. It means accepting a role in changing the conditions that surround everyone in an organisation and being willing to challenge the patterns that produce inequality even when doing so is uncomfortable.

Individual commitment, however, is not sufficient on its own. When allyship depends exclusively on motivated individuals doing the right thing at the right moment, progress remains fragile, as sustainable allyship requires institutional embedding in recruitment, promotion, pay, development and sponsorship processes. A top-down process with clear expectations, leadership commitment, and measurable outcomes makes it possible to track any meaningful change.

An employee resource group built around parents, not mothers

Roberta Scrofani, AI advisor and former product manager at Criteo, described the practice she built while returning from maternity leave in 2020. She launched an employee resource group but called it a parents community rather than a mothers community. The naming was intended to include fathers from the start, because the decisions affecting working parents were being made by people who were largely absent from the conversation.

Within a year, the community attracted around 700 members from a workforce of 6,000. Significantly, 230 of those members were non-parents, including many fathers who were engaging with the issues in anticipation of becoming parents. The CMO, a man, agreed to act as sponsor and committed to showing up visibly rather than simply lending his name to internal communications. Employees in every country gained four weeks of paid parental leave, regardless of national legal minimums. An onboarding programme was developed for parents returning after leave. The proportion of women returning from extended caregiving periods increased, supported by a paid reduction in working hours that the company offered independently of local regulations.

“I stopped asking for permission. I stopped waiting for people to allow me to be in that room. And I started claiming my space and my voice, not only for me, but also for the other people that were not in the room.”

Visibility and ownership in cybersecurity

Engin Büker, Product Line Architect for Data-Centric Security at Thales Belgium, shared a practice drawn from one of the most male-dominated environments in the digital sector. In technical organisations, including his own, he observed that it is common for someone to carry the substantive work on a project while a more senior or more visible colleague presents it. The person doing the work receives neither the recognition nor the exposure that determines how careers develop.

In his own team, when a female colleague had both the subject matter expertise and the capacity to lead a work stream, Büker ensured she had direct ownership: she led the technical work, presented the results, and participated in customer and management discussions. As such, she became the recognised point of contact for that area of work, subsequently received additional responsibilities, and gained more direct involvement in technical decision-making. No formal diversity programme was required.

His recommendation for others working in similar environments was specific. Look at the next three meaningful opportunities within your team. Ask how decisions about allocating those opportunities are being made. If the same people are always selected because they are already visible, that pattern can be changed immediately, without waiting for a corporate initiative, a policy change, or a new programme.

“The person doing the work should have the opportunity to explain it, defend it, and receive recognition for it.”

On resistance from male colleagues, Büker was candid. In his current environment, he has encountered relatively little. In his earlier military experience, he was challenged by colleagues who questioned whether women were capable of the roles being offered. He responded that capability, not gender, should be the measuring tool, and those with enough influence over how work and opportunities are allocated already have the means to change things, regardless of seniority.

The SME challenge

Lina Nardone, project manager at the Open Digital SME Alliance, brought her own perspective: the digital SME sector employs close to half the workforce in the sector across Europe, yet most policy frameworks and diversity initiatives are designed with large organisations in mind. SMEs rarely have dedicated HR departments, diversity budgets, or the organisational depth to implement formal programmes.

Nardone’s argument was that the principle of intentionality transfers even without those structures. Creating an opportunity for women to participate is not the same as ensuring they take it. In all the Alliance’s projects and events, her team actively avoids defaulting to the same visible networks when assembling expert groups, panels, or training cohorts. Reaching different people requires deliberate effort, and doing so consistently gradually shifts the composition of the communities that the Alliance convenes.

She also pointed to research indicating that 39% of European women with the qualifications to work in the tech sector are not working in it. The retention question compounds the entry problem: data suggests that by the age of 35, most women who entered the tech sector have left it. SMEs need to attend to both issues simultaneously, and with limited resources. Nardone identified some practical tools that work even at small scale: flexible and accessible training that responds to concrete needs, peer exchange between practitioners rather than top-down instruction, and trusted intermediaries who can carry inclusive practices into communities of companies that might not otherwise encounter them.

What the Women in Digital Forum should do next

The session closed with a question directed at all three panellists. Given that allyship cannot rest on individual good intentions, what should the Women in Digital Forum do in the next six months to bring more men into the conversation as active participants rather than passive observers?

Scrofani’s answer was policy: turning inclusive practices into written expectations within organisations and shortening the distance between the people experiencing the impacts and the people writing the rules. Nardone’s answer was quality over quantity: invite men who will commit to a specific action, rather than seeking numbers. Büker returned to opportunity allocation as the structural change that can be made immediately, at every level of an organisation, by anyone with influence over how work is assigned.

Alexandrina Satnoianu from the European Institute for Gender Equality, who joined in the final discussion, noted that EIGE’s Gender Equality for Growth campaign is developing exactly this kind of evidence base, including models of comprehensive gender equality action plans applicable to organisations of different sizes. The work of connecting those models to practical implementation at company level, including SME level, remains the open question.

“It’s not just about attracting women and having them join. It’s about having people who are really committed and, once they are there, taking action.”