We all benefit from equal opportunities, so let’s strive for gender equality together

Judith Hanoune, Felicity Lee and Ioana Tripa combine their Lioness activities with their busy jobs. Judith is Chapter Lead Fraud in the Tribe Fraud & Cybersecurity and the Chair of Lioness. Innovation Lead Felicity and Community Lead Ioana work together in the Virtual Assistant Services squad, within the Assisted Channels tribe.

Culture shock

All three are very committed to the Lioness cause: embedding gender equality within the organisation. “I come from a country where a lot of women work in IT,” says Ioana. “But at ING, I was the only woman in my team working on the tech side until Felicity joined. The lack of women was quite a culture shock!”. Felicity adds: “I got used to being one of the very few women in my kind of work, but I sometimes felt my work achievements were slightly overshadowed due to females being under-represented.”

Diverse teams

Judith has spent over 20 years working in IT environments where there have always been far more men than women: “I guess you could call me lucky, because gender has never been an issue for me. But that’s only my personal experience. As a chapter lead and team lead, part of my job is to make sure my team is diverse, including in terms of gender.”

A relevant network

“People might think that gender equality is a given in an innovative, progressive organisation like ING, but as long as employees don’t dare to put themselves forward or feel they are treated differently from their colleagues, then the network is still relevant,” Judith continues.

An issue for men as well as women

“External statistics show that women are still less likely to apply for promotions and leadership positions,” Felicity adds. “And women tend to find it more difficult to negotiate when they accept a job. But gender equality is certainly not a women-only issue; men suffer from gender inequality too. For example, although both genders are now usually entitled to the same amount of parental leave, men often feel social pressure to take less time off. We all benefit from equal opportunities and we can only achieve our goals together.”

Networking and mentoring

“Lioness is a safe place for sharing experiences – good and bad – as well as for getting to know other people and other parts of the bank,” says Judith. “Some of the ways we encourage women to make effective use of both their personal network and the Lioness network include organising workshops and events and running a yearly mentorship programme.”

Achieving goals

Ioana has first-hand experience of the mentorship programme: “Lioness paired me up with a very good public speaker to help me achieve my goal of expressing myself more confidently in public. Since then, I’ve spoken during Risk Awareness Day and have been approached for other opportunities. There are many ‘success stories’ like mine and we’re continuously working to facilitate even more of them.”