Mentorship is the patronage, influence, guidance, or direction given by a mentor. A mentor is someone who teaches or gives help and advice to a less experienced and often younger person. In an organizational setting, a mentor influences the personal and professional growth of a mentee. Most traditional mentorships involve having senior employees mentor more junior employees, but mentors do not necessarily have to be more senior than the people they mentor. What matters is that mentors have experience that others can learn from.
Youth mentoring is the process of matching mentors with young people who need or want a caring, responsible adult in their lives. Adult mentors are usually unrelated to the child or teen and work as volunteers through a community-, school-, or church-based social service program. The goal of youth mentoring programs is to improve the well-being of the child by providing a role model that can support the child academically, socially and/or personally. This goal can be accomplished through school work, communication, and/or activities. Goals and settings within a mentoring program vary by country because of cultural values.
Peer mentoring is a form of mentorship that usually takes place between a person who has lived through a specific experience and a person who is new to that experience. An example would be an experienced student being a peer mentor to a new student, the peer mentee, in a particular subject, or in a new school. Peer mentors are also used for health and lifestyle changes. For example, clients, or patients, with support from peers, may have one-on-one sessions that meet regularly to help them recover or rehabilitate. Peer mentoring provides individuals who have had a specific life experience the chance to learn from those who have recovered, or rehabilitated, following such an experience. Peer mentors provide education, recreation and support opportunities to individuals. The peer mentor may challenge the mentee with new ideas, and encourage the mentee to move beyond the things that are most comfortable. Most peer mentors are picked for their sensibility, confidence, social skills and reliability.
Christopher "Chris" Hedrick is an entrepreneur and expert in learning, global health, international development, and technology.
The Financial Women's Association (FWA) is a New York-based network of female professionals from various sectors of the financial world. Founded in 1956, the FWA is a professional organization focused on enhancing the role of women in finance, as well as fostering the development of young female leaders. The FWA serves its members through educational programs and networking opportunities, and it serves the community through its nationally acclaimed scholarship, mentoring and training programs.
Gary Stephen May is the chancellor of the University of California, Davis. From May 2005 to June 2011, he was the Steve W. Chaddick School Chair of the School of Electrical & Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech. He served as the Dean of the Georgia Tech College of Engineering from July 2011 until June 2017.
Impact sourcing, also known as socially responsible outsourcing, refers to an arm of the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry. It employs people at the base of the pyramid or socioeconomically disadvantaged individuals as principal workers in BPO centers to provide high-quality, information-based services to domestic and international clients. The traditional BPO sector is typically associated with high-end, high-contact functions like call centers, which require significant education and language literacy levels. The impact sourcing sector focuses on utilizing workers from poor and vulnerable communities to perform functions with lower and moderate skill requirements such as scanning documents, data-entry work, data verification and cleaning, video tagging, and microwork.
The International Mentoring Program (IMP) is a student-based program at Brown University that offers social, academic, and educational support to incoming international students. The aim of the IMP is to assist incoming students in their transition to Brown University and the United States by providing each student with a mentor who provides advice and acts as a resource to them. These mentors are upper classmen who communicate with the international students throughout the academic year to offer support to the new students in their transition.
100 Women in Finance, formerly 100 Women in Hedge Funds (100WHF), is a non-profit organization for professionals who work in the alternative investment and broader finance industry. The organization aims to strengthen women's presence in the finance field by supporting women at each career stage to achieve their career goals. Actual membership comprises more than 30,000 professionals in 32 locations. Professional members advocate for a new generation of leadership, where women and men are equally successful and impactful in their roles as investment professionals and executives.
Workplace mentoring is a “learning partnership between employees for purposes of sharing technical information, institutional knowledge and insight with respect to a particular occupation, profession, organization or endeavor”. If this process is done correctly, the organization may reduce turnover and increase productivity. Workplace mentoring is not confined to a certain age and is a relationship that develops though close interactions with a mentor and their protégé. Mentoring practices differ from other developmental relationships in the workplace, such as supervision and leadership.
The Brown Center for Students of Color (BCSC), formerly known as the Third World Center, is a center for the support of students of color at Brown University. Founded in 1972 at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, the Center is "a place and space for students of color to explore their identity, develop their leadership skills, and build a sense of community in a welcoming and supportive environment." The BCSC was founded out of a rich history of student activism and organizing, a history that is honored in its mission today.
The STEM pipeline is the educational pathway for students in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The start and end of this STEM pipeline are disputed, but it is often considered to begin in early education and extend into graduation or an adult career in STEM.
Ashanti Johnson is an American geochemist and chemical oceanographer. She is the first African American to earn a doctoral degree in oceanography from Texas A&M University.
Richard Wilcox is a German and United States diplomat and public finance expert. He serves as the Director of Private Partnerships for the United Nations World Food Programme. Immediately preceding this role, he was UN Special Advisor and Director of the UN Task Force on Russian Trade Facilitation as part of the UN’s Black Sea Grain Initiative which he conceived and helped negotiate in 2022.
Beronda Montgomery is a writer, science communicator, and researcher. In 2022, she moved to Grinnell College as professor of biology and vice president for academic affairs and dean of the college. Prior to Grinnell, Montgomery served as Michigan State University Foundation Professor in the Departments of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and of Microbiology & Molecular Genetics. She was also a member of the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory. Her research group investigates how photosynthetic organisms adapt to changes in their environment. Her scholarship extends beyond biology and into studying mentorship and faculty development to develop evidence-based strategies to foster equity and inclusion in academia. Together with Tanisha Williams and other members of the Black Botanists Week organizing committee, Montgomery co-founded and co-organizes Black Botanists Week.
Nicola Galombik is a South African social entrepreneur and businesswoman, known for founding Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator, an award-winning South African nonprofit. She currently serves as the executive director of Yellowwoods, an investment holding company based in South Africa. Her career has included developing policy for the government of Nelson Mandela, and creating the education strategy for South African Broadcasting Corporation.
Renetta Garrison Tull is an American electrical engineer, global policy strategist, and works to advance diversity and inclusion in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Tull is the inaugural Vice Chancellor of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at University of California, Davis and a founding Director of the National Science Foundation funded program PROMISE: Alliances for Graduate Education and Professoriate, which aims to increase the number of underrepresented students in STEM. Tull previously served as Vice Provost for Strategic Initiatives at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) and was also the Director of Graduate and Professional Pipeline Development for the University System of Maryland (USM) where she also served as the co-Principal Investigator and co-director of the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation. On a global scale, Tull was selected as the keynote speaker for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) event on the Commission on the Status of Women in Engineering Fields, and was the only American and only female finalist for the Global Engineering Deans Council Airbus Diversity Award in 2015.
Women in CyberSecurity (WiCyS) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit aimed at supporting the recruitment, retention and advancement of women in cybersecurity. It is a global community of men and women dedicated to bringing talented women and under-represented groups together to fill the cybersecurity jobs gap and make the field of cybersecurity more inclusive.
According to the National Science Foundation (NSF), women and racial minorities are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Scholars, governments, and scientific organizations from around the world have noted a variety of explanations contributing to this lack of racial diversity, including higher levels of discrimination, implicit bias, microaggressions, chilly climate, lack of role models and mentors, and less academic preparation.
Kingsley Kwaku Pinkrah is a Ghanaian social entrepreneur and business advisor. He has founded Cedi Ghana, an NGO that addresses poverty and youth unemployment in Ghana.
