Celebrating International Women's Day with our employee resource group

To mark International Women's Day, we caught up with our People Engagement Partner, Natasha O'Sullivan, to hear more about Women At Disguise - an initiative driven by Natasha to help provide support and learning resources to women across the business. 

Can you tell us why Women At Disguise has been set up?

We set out to establish an employee resource group at Disguise to foster a supportive and empowering environment for women across the organisation. Our goal was to create a group led by and driven by the women of Disguise, ensuring it would be as impactful and meaningful as possible.

Our key objectives include fostering inclusivity, providing networking opportunities, and addressing challenges unique to women—such as gender inequality—as well as wider topics such as work-life balance, mentorship, and leadership development. We wanted to create a space that every woman at Disguise could take ownership of and benefit from.

We recognised the powerful role that support networks like Women At Disguise play in shaping women's experiences in business, particularly in the technology industry. This knowledge drove us to help establish this group and set it up for lasting success. 

What are the key areas that the group can support in?

Since its launch in October 2024, we recognised the importance of ensuring that employees collectively drive this group forward. Our first priority was to bring together a diverse group of women from different business areas and regions to form the Women At Disguise leadership team.

The initial sessions focused on sharing our experiences as women at Disguise and in the broader business world. From these discussions, we began shaping the group’s purpose and identifying how we could create meaningful impact. We established three key areas of support:

• Career Development: Providing mentorship, leadership training and resources to help women advance in their careers

• Community Building: Creating a space for women to share experiences, discuss challenges, and connect across teams and departments

• Advocacy and Awareness: Raising awareness of gender-specific workplace issues, including pay equity, representation in leadership, and parental leave policies.

To engage all women at Disguise, we communicated out these objectives and set up Slack channels for ongoing discussions.

What sort of sessions does Women at Disguise run?

For our first couple of sessions, we decided to host small group discussions around key topics, fostering open and honest conversations. These sessions, led by pairs from the leadership team, became known as our Women At Disguise Book Clubs. So far, we have successfully hosted discussions on Why There Are So Few Female Leaders and The Careers of Female CEOs.

To tie in with International Women's Day, we have a really exciting session coming up with guest speaker Heidi Roizen, renowned entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and advocate for women in business, who will be exploring themes around resilience and the power of networking. 

We are excited to continue creating these learning and support opportunities for women at Disguise throughout 2025, and also hope to increase community engagement initiatives, extending our reach and impact beyond the organisation.