European Electronique CEO Yolanta Gill

In celebration of International Women’s Day, CRN UK ran a feature on female tech provider bosses which included European Electronique’s CEO Yolanta Gill. In this interview Yolanta talks about her career journey, her role models and what we can do to ensure there is more diversity within the industry. Questions posed to the leading ladies were how they entered the industry, who they regard as their role models and if they feel the IT Industry’s gender diversity is a topic that needs highlighting and if so, how?

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Do you think the IT industry’s gender diversity deficit – and diversity deficit more widely – warrants highlighting?

I would question what “highlighting” the gender diversity issue really means as quite often it becomes more patronising than helpful. Although discussion is useful it can be counter-productive if nothing positive comes from it, as it only serves to embed the image than women are not as capable as men and somehow need special consideration. Women don’t need to be patronised or singled out for special treatment, they need to be treated equally and I believe that as a society we are far from this point. The gender pay gap clearly demonstrates this. I sometimes feel that there almost needs to be less talk and more action.

Who is your role model?

I had to consider this question for a while as initially no role model came quickly to mind. After mulling this over however I realised that growing up I did indeed have plenty of role models around me which I hadn’t appreciated until now. I was brought up and educated in a very different social set-up, and this no doubt had an impact on how I approached this question.


Women don’t need to be singled out for special treatment, they need to be treated equally.

Yolanta Gill, CEO European Electronique