Challenging Gender Stereotypes
Male Allies Programme: Cultivating Gender Equality Advocates
The Male Allies Programme strives to further gender equality by engaging and empowering both men and women to lead more effective conversations around gender. This cross-sector, year-long programme brings together allies to learn how to create real change in their spheres of influence and serves as a platform for participants to share best practices and learnings through a growing professional network.
We aim to cultivate a community of gender equality allies with the following objectives:
Raising awareness on gender equality
Improve participants understanding of gender equality through research, education, awareness raising and dialogue
Leveraging influence for policy change
Closing the gender gap by influencing changes in policies within companies across sectors
Cascading change into the community
Training and empowering allies to be active agents to advance gender equality in all spheres
Programme Highlights
Influencer Circles are workshops where participants are grouped in smaller cross-sector groups to discuss key gender issues, led by our IC Leads – our Male Allies, who are past programme participants. These sessions are a psychologically safe space for participants to learn, ask questions and share their experiences.
The programme also consists of larger-scale engagements for participants to meet outside of their Influencer Circle sessions. To create stronger connections across the TWF community, our Cross-Programme engagements bring together participants from Male Allies and the Mentoring Programme for Women Leaders to facilitate best-practice sharing and peer learning.
We empower our allies to take action and create meaningful change in their spheres of influence through two components:
- The Organisation Project, which aims to empower teams of Male Allies from each corporate partner to identify and deliver a concrete output that contributes to their organisation's gender diversity, equity and inclusion goals, enabling participants to action what they are learning in the programme.
- The Leadership Pledge, an individual pledge that each ally commits to at the start of the programme. This aims to empower allies to reflect on their personal allyship journeys and role-model inclusive behaviours at work and beyond.
At TWF, we want to highlight the diversity of industries, seniorities, nationalities, and ethnicities in our programme cohort. Our participants, and the diverse perspectives and experiences they bring, help create a strong network of gender equality advocates ready to Listen, Learn, and Act together.
Testimonial
Hear from our Male Allies Programme Participants
The Male Allies Programme has been instrumental in terms of helping both me and my colleagues gain important knowledge and to be more proactive in relation to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) topics within the firm. It also provides a unique opportunity to meet and learn from other organisations and to hear their perspectives from across industries, including legal, accounting, construction, and transportation.
Impact
Male and female allies have used their collective influence to advance gender equality since 2018. Beyond individual impact, many organisations leverage learning from Male Allies to create wider organisational impact.
Male Allies Leadership Council
We are grateful for the advice and support of our Male Allies Leadership Council Members, including:
Andrew Chey
Managing Director
Credit Agricole
Bonnie Hayden Cheng
Professor and Department Head, Department of Management at the College of Business
City University of Hong Kong
Byron Phillips
Partner
Hogan Lovells
Claire Goodchild
Counsellor Trainee
University of Hong Kong
Janet Wang
Senior Corporate Responsibility Advisor
Linklaters
Jason Lui
Managing Director
BNP Paribas
Matthew Smith
Head of Equity Finance, Asia
Macquarie
Raymond Leung
General Manager, Strategy Development & Greater Bay Area
Swire Group
Sakshi Kumar
Engagement & Development Manager APAC
White & Case
Samuel Ma
Head of Account Management
JLL
Tristan Strobl
Director, Compliance
BlackRock
Please get in touch at pipeline@twfhk.org if you would like to find out more about how to become a Corporate Partner.
Continue Reading
Path to Empowerment
Jan2026
The Allies Circle
Jun2025
