How can we foster gender equity in academia and in the field of research? Which gender equity practices could be able to counter the many gender inequalities? Many measures focus on women, trying to increase the number of female staff at all career levels, helping women to adjust to the male world. These programs meet the organization needs without disrupting the gender status quo. The masculine model of the ideal academia remains unquestioned. In 2018 we promoted a gender mentoring program with the intention of operating a transformative process within the organization starting from the younger generations (mentees) and their mentors. The program has been the first gender mentoring inside an Italian research institute. This action works on two lines: empowering the individuals while at the same time generating transformative process inside the institutions and raising awareness about the persisting gendered dimension of academia and research. In order to foster institutional change and better exploit the mentoring potential, during the second edition we included also men and brought concrete proposals to the management table to counteract the multitude of gender inequality practices. The mentoring model implemented was designed, including some tools, by University of Naples “Federico II” researchers following an evaluation study considering the INFN specific needs and organization.