Male Allies UK launches at Zoom's London Headquarters

The organisation, focused on engaging men in inclusion and building allyship skills, launched on October 11, in conjunction with Women in Tech Week.

Male Allies UK, founded by Preston business psychologist Lee Chambers, has launched it's suite of services this month, celebrating with an event at Zoom's EMEA head office at Holborn.

The event, which also closed the inaugural Women in Tech Week, was an opportunity to highlight the importance of male allyship in accelerating gender equity and how engaging in inclusion has a range of benefits for men.

The organisation, which delivers speaking, masterclasses, workshops and consultancy, is focused on building allyship as a leadership skillset, creating high-performing diverse teams and ensuring everyone has a place in creating inclusive environments at work.

This involves equipping men with the skills, highlighting how they benefit, showcasing how they move beyond the barriers and dispelling the myths and misconceptions of what allyship and inclusion are.

The launch was a cumulation of two years of research and pilots, including interviews with over 300 employees and projects with companies including Whitbread, John Lewis and EY.

With 41% of men surveyed feeling that women's equality has gone to far, there isn't a more important time to move beyond the division and polarisation, to a place of true allyship which is focused on togetherness, unity and solidarity.

The event was opened by Steve Rafferty, head of EMEA for Zoom, alongside Women in Tech Week founder Dr Vanessa Vallely OBE. After a keynote by Male Allies UK CEO Lee Chambers, there was a panel focused on the importance of male allyship, which featured the founder Labour Women in Tech, Samantha Niblett MP, alongside the 2023 Most Influential Women in UK Tech Suki Fuller and Zoom executives Dave Grant and Helen Hawthorn.

On launching Male Allies UK, Lee Chambers said: "It's been a long time in the making to get to launch day, but there couldn't be a more pivotal moment to bring a solution that evolves conversations around inclusion and looks at initiatives and action rather than activities.

"This journey started for me in 2016 when I stepped from CEO to stay-at-home father, having learnt to walk again after illness, and explored what my role could be in reducing gender barriers in the workplace and supporting men to find who they truly are and helping them to express that.

"Whether it's the lack of women in leadership or the lack of life satisfaction for men, Male Allies UK exists to bring both genders together to change the system that holds us both back. I'm excited to see where this mission takes us in an ever-changing world."

The social output of Male Allies UK is the corporate delivery funding workshops for boys in schools, continuing work previously self-funded by Chambers, focusing on healthy masculinity and self-expression, alongside online disinformation, misogyny and critical thinking. With more corporate partners, they will scale the work in education to foster allyship skills in the next generation and actively tackle the current challenges boys face in society.

Whether your looking to engage men in inclusion, upskill your teams on allyship or approach DEI from a different angle, Male Allies UK are able to support you and change the narrative through tailored masterclasses, workshops and consultancy.