Mentor Archives - The Grassy Road

Five tough lessons on being a mentor

Coaching and mentoring is increasingly popular, everyone wants one, everyone has one. This is somewhat a result of the explosion in the number of startups over the last ten years, but also because the word is out that getting a good mentor can really help you grow faster at any stage of your career. And women want to help women! I have mentored on and off for the last 20 years but in the last 2 years since I stepped down as CEO I have focused almost entirely on women, [...]

Why women need sponsors more than mentors

I was on a panel at GHC 2012 last week "Sponsors or Mentors - which will get you there?" Standing room only in a large room, it was clearly a topic of great interest to the female tech students and geeks at the conference. And the questions were priceless... The panel, lead by Anne Losby of Thomson Reuters, was prompted by a report Catalyst put out last year on Sponsoring Women to Success. In it the research clearly shows sponsorship is a powerful differentiator at the top and key to [...]