When Activision Blizzard's first EMEA DE&I Manager set out to bring the company's US-centric employee networks to our region, I volunteered to lead the new Disability Network chapter. Over the following years, a team of six of us built it from a lunchtime idea into a community of around 70 members, with a programme of awareness initiatives that changed how openly our offices talked about neurodiversity, mental load and invisible disability. It is the work that shaped my "come as you are" philosophy more than anything else in my career.
Before our region had dedicated DE&I support, disability was the quiet corner of inclusion: not a visible crisis, but not a conversation either. People didn't talk much about neurodiversity in a company where, like much of tech and gaming, neurodivergent colleagues are a meaningful part of the workforce. Stress and burnout were periodic realities of the business, with intensity spiking around every game launch. And the topic itself is delicate: nobody should ever feel pressured to disclose. The challenge was to create awareness and openness without ever putting an individual on the spot.
"Creating the safe space is just as important as building the diverse team in the first place."
The lesson that shapes how I do HR todayWe went where the impact was. Our neurodiversity Lunch and Learns brought external speakers into the office and onto Zoom, teaching practical changes anyone could make: sending agendas before meetings, offering different ways to communicate, small adjustments with outsized effects. (Free lunch, it turns out, is a great inclusion strategy in itself.) For stress and burnout, we ran sessions on recognising early warning signs and practical defences, and our resident mindfulness practitioner, unofficially our Mindfulness Master, launched half-hour "Mindfulness Mondays" to start each week with a clear head. I'll admit I found the idea slightly odd at first. Then I attended a few, and became a convert.
The initiative I'm proudest of is SafeSpace: a monthly open session where anyone could bring difficult topics, with one firm rule, that whatever was said stayed in the room. Members and colleagues suggested the themes, and the sessions gave people a place to be honest without being judged.
The change was visible. Neurodiversity went from something rarely mentioned to something colleagues were aware of, comfortable with, and in some cases loud and proud about. Session feedback was consistently excellent, Mindfulness Mondays became a fixture, and I'm convinced many colleagues became more comfortable bringing their whole selves to work, disabilities included.
There's a personal reason this work matters to me. During a short stint at SEGA when I first moved to London, I took part in a 24-hour livestream raising donations for SpecialEffect, a charity that builds custom hardware so disabled people can play video games. Gaming is a massive part of my life, and the thought of losing access to it made the point better than any policy paper could. When I was asked to help build the Disability Network, saying yes took about a second.
What leading this network taught me: everyone brings a different background to work, and we are often too quick to label someone an underperformer when a small change in approach would make their role accessible. I fully believe diverse teams produce better results. But that's only true if people can share their views openly without being judged. Creating the safe space is just as important as building the diverse team in the first place.