Mentoring won't fix tech's gender gap but sponsorship will

For years, the tech sector has congratulated itself on rolling out mentoring programs for women, yet the leadership gap remains as wide as ever. 

Globally, women hold just 17–20% of senior leadership roles in technology, despite making up more than a third of the workforce. The maths is hard to take: simply put, progress is far too slow.

Unquestionably, mentorship builds confidence, but confidence doesn't get you promoted. Influence does.

And influence is exactly what women in tech across Asia are still being denied.

For example, in my home country of Australia, women reached parity in the Order of Australia honours only a few years ago, yet in 2026 their representation dropped sharply. For what is essentially the nation's Oscars for everyday people, that reversal is a warning signal.

Bringing it back to tech, I can say firsthand that women are doing the work, delivering results, and driving innovation. This isn't the case everywhere, but in many organisations that I observe, they're becoming less visible, not more. 

In a sector that prides itself on disruption, this regression should be unacceptable. 

If women are contributing at every level of the tech ecosystem, why aren't they being seen, sponsored, and elevated?

Across Asia, the numbers tell a consistent story.

Women make up roughly a third of the region's tech workforce, but their representation collapses the higher you climb. UNESCO has reported that only around one in five technical roles in major machine learning companies are held by women, and the proportion of women in AI research globally sits at about 12%. In software development, the figure drops to single digits.

Mentoring alone cannot fix that. Mentors advise you. Sponsors propel you.

What do I mean by sponsor?

A sponsor is not a mentor with a different title. A sponsor is a senior leader who uses their influence to actively advance someone's career, advocating succession discussions, nominating stretch roles, and putting names forward for high visibility opportunities. 

Put simply, they're not guiding someone through the system; they're deliberately opening doors that can't be accessed alone.

And in tech, where career defining opportunities often emerge through informal networks, closed-door conversations, and high visibility projects, sponsorship is the missing accelerant.

As a senior leader at AirTrunk, I've seen first-hand how transformative sponsorship can be. 

One of the defining moments in my own career came when a former colleague didn't just offer guidance but actively backed me for an opportunity that ultimately brought me to AirTrunk. They advocated for me when I wasn't in the room, opened a door that I couldn't have accessed alone, and ensured my name was part of the conversation at the highest levels. That is what sponsorship looks like. And it changes everything.

When AirTrunk introduced a structured sponsorship program, called PlusOne, the impact was immediate. 

Women who had been ready for bigger roles for years – or maybe even not - suddenly had senior leaders advocating for them in succession discussions, naming them for strategic projects, and pushing them into the spotlight. 

Promotions followed within months. Nothing about these women changed: instead, it was who was speaking their names in the rooms that mattered.

This is the uncomfortable truth the tech sector must confront: women do not lack capability, ambition, or readiness. Instead, they lack access to the power structures that determine who rises. 

And unless organisations intentionally disrupt those structures, the gender gap will persist no matter how many mentoring circles, networking breakfasts, or leadership workshops are offered.

Having recently moved from Australia to Japan, the contrast is impossible to miss. Within our business, you can feel the momentum building every day.

Scale is the region's mantra: scale of infrastructure, scale of digital adoption, scale of ambition. 

But scale without inclusion is brittle. You can sense the strain already. The region cannot sustain its growth trajectory if half the talent pool remains under recognised and under-sponsored. 

And this, frankly, frustrates me!

We need the smartest and most energetic minds in the driver's seat. At AirTrunk, that doesn't mean "time in role" or "who's been around longest." It means capability, potential, and readiness, wherever they sit.

In a sector defined by speed, complexity, and constant reinvention, excluding half the talent pool is not only inequitable, it's strategically under-whelming.

International Women's Day offers a timely reminder that progress requires more than celebration; it requires action. 

When leaders use their influence to elevate women, organisations gain stronger pipelines, more innovative thinking, and more resilient cultures. 

Sponsorship is not charity. It's a strategic investment in the future of the tech industry.

Tech companies across Asia must stop treating sponsorship as optional and start treating it as essential infrastructure, like the cloud architecture we're building.

And every senior leader should be able to name three women they are actively sponsoring right now.

Senior leaders must take responsibility for identifying high-potential women and advocating for them loudly and consistently. And organisations must measure outcomes, not intentions.

The tech sector prides itself on solving complex problems at scale. 

It's time to apply that same ambition to gender equity. 

Mentorship helps women grow. Sponsorship helps them rise. 

If Asia's tech industry wants to lead the world, it must ensure women are not just supported, they're sponsored, championed, and placed at the centre of the region's digital future.