Is female leadership in tech gaining ground?

Friday, June 5, 2026

Only 18% of IT professionals in the Netherlands are female. Of that already-small number, just a fraction hold senior leadership roles. That figure is not a footnote; it is the central tension that every woman navigating a tech career in this country eventually has to reckon with. The good news is that something is shifting. Not uniformly, and not fast enough. But the direction of travel has changed, and the reasons why are worth understanding properly.

Table of contents:

  • The boardroom has changed.

  • The gap is real, and so is the momentum.

  • Celebrating women in tech is not symbolic. It is strategic.

  • What it actually takes to rise

The boardroom has changed.

For a long time, the pressure on women entering boardrooms was subtle but consistent: adjust your style, soften your edges, don't take up too much space. Andrea Kraus knows this from experience. She was, for years, the only woman in the room. Kraus, Chief Revenue Officer and board member at Eurofiber Group, has watched the culture evolve across the course of a long career in senior leadership. The adjustment she once felt compelled to make in appearance, manner, in how much room she took up no longer feels necessary. "Women can be more diplomatic and more empathic listeners," she says. "These skills are critical in the modern workplace, and they lead to increased profitability."

That framing matters. For years, traits associated with female leadership were treated as secondary. Softer, less strategic, less serious. What Andrea and a growing number of voices in the industry are arguing is that they were never secondary. They were just undervalued.

The gap is real, and so is the momentum.

The Dutch tech sector has made progress. But progress is not the same as parity, and it is worth being precise about what the numbers actually show. A report by Deloitte Global found that women in tech leadership are making the fastest advances of any group within the industry. In the Netherlands specifically, female-led companies are gaining visibility in fintech, edtech, healthtech, agritech, and AI. And yet the baseline remains stubbornly low. According to a CIO piece by Melanie Butcher, only 18% of IT professionals in the Netherlands are women. The Dutch government has set a target of 50% by 2030. This is an ambition that, given current trajectory, will require sustained and deliberate effort from employers, not just policy. That effort has to be structural. Representation in entry-level roles does not automatically translate into leadership pipelines. Companies need to actively invest in internal mobility, sponsorship, and partnership with networks and mentoring programmes, including initiatives like the RightBrains Digital Talent Programme, that are specifically designed to close the gap at the top, not just at the door.

Celebrating women in tech is not just symbolic. It's strategic.

There is sometimes a tendency to dismiss awards and recognition events as feel-good noise. Karen Pesse, keynote speaker and thought leader on gender in technology, disagrees.. and so does the evidence. "I'm firm in the belief that we need to celebrate people to help prevent burnout," she says.

Visibility matters. When women in senior roles are named, recognised, and held up as reference points, it does something concrete: it makes leadership feel like a realistic destination rather than an exception. The growth of initiatives like the Women in Tech Europe Awards, the RightBrains Awards, and the Diane Bevelander prize over the last few years is not coincidental. It reflects a sector that is beginning to understand that celebrating what you want to see more of is part of how you create it. At RightBrains, we've watched this shift play out across our community. And the change in confidence it produces is real. Recognition is infrastructure.

 What it actually takes to rise.

For women earlier in their careers who are thinking about leadership, the practical advice is less glamorous than the awards ceremonies might suggest. It comes down to three things done consistently: building expertise, building relationships, and knowing your own value. The RightBrains Digital Leadership Programme exists precisely for this — to give ambitious women in tech the frameworks, the peer network, and the visibility they need to move from individual contributor to digital leader. Continuous learning is not optional in a sector that moves as fast as this one does.

The network piece is equally important, and often underestimated. A strong professional network, including mentorship relationships with people who can open doors, not just give advice, provides a kind of navigation that no amount of solo effort can replicate.

And then there is the question of self-worth. Andrea Kraus puts it bluntly: "Never make the coffee. Say you cannot make the coffee." It sounds like a small thing. It is not. From the first day in a role to the last boardroom conversation, the willingness to signal what you bring (rather than defaulting to what is expected) is one of the most consistent differences between women who rise and women who get stuck. The European tech industry is not yet where it needs to be on gender equity. But the direction has changed. The tools exist. The community is here. Join us! 

Ready to be part of the shift? Join the RightBrains United Linkedin Group and read more about our Digital Leadership Programme for 2026/2027.

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By Carine du Pisanie

Carine du Pisanie is the Director of Marketing and Operations for RightBrains and is passionate about creating meaningful content and value to women in digital technology. In her entrepreneurial area, she is fascinated with the intersection of creativity and technology in the age of AI.

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