New Women’s Mentoring Initiative Kicks Off Across New York

By Jacey Fortin (New York City)

Jeanine Conley is on the fast track to a senior position in the legal field. After practicing law for only nine years, she’s already a junior partner at Baker Hostetler, a firm with offices all over the country. And she’s not stopping now—Conley has ambitious goals for continued advancement.

Now, thanks to an initiative by New York’s U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, she’s getting some extra help along the way.
In October of this year at the first annual Women’s Economic Empowerment Summit in New York City, Gillibrand stood with Kathryn Wylde, President and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, and Chloe Drew, the executive director of the Council for Urban Professionals (CUP), to kick off a new state-wide mentorship program. She asked the Partnership to find 100 senior executives who were willing to share their time and expertise with up-and-coming professionals, and she asked CUP to find 100 young women looking for career guidance.

The recruiting efforts progressed without a hitch. “The Partnership for New York City has a network of civically engaged business executives,” said Wylde. “We reached out and simply asked who would be willing to become a mentor. From our membership in the city, we got 80 volunteers from a very senior-level group. The rest are coming from upstate organizations, which are reaching out to their communities to make this a state-wide effort.”
Drew was also able to drum up participants quickly. “CUP has a broader network of about 15,000 people,” she said. “We sent invitations out to the community via social networking, emails, Facebook and Twitter. Applicants sent in resumes and letters of interest, explaining why this was important to them. People could nominate either themselves or other young women.”

Conley nominated herself for the program. “I think mentorship at every stage of your career is critical,” she said. “When I learned that the program would pair women who are junior in their career with more senior women, I knew it would be a huge benefit.”

To date, all of 200 the mentees and mentors have been found and matched up. Now, it’s up to Conley and her peers to be proactive about maintaining their new relationships.

“We tell mentees that it’s their job to do the outreach,” explained Drew. “The relationship has to be driven by the mentees, not the mentors. The goal is that they will meet once a quarter this year, and we’ll check in with them along the way.”

Tipping the Balance

In New York State and across the country, there is a real need for this type of program. “There is very much an old boys’ network that is part of the infrastructure of corporate America,” noted Wylde. “This is not true to the same extent with women.”

Although women make up about half of the labor force today, they are sorely underrepresented at the senior executive level. This year, a report from the research firm Catalyst Inc. tallied up the percentages: in 2009 and 2010, only 14.4 percent of executive officer positions in the United States were held by women. The proportions are trending in the right direction—the percentage of women in power has been rising consistently on a year-to-year basis—but there’s still a long way to go.

“We’re really talking about tipping the balance of women’s success,” said Drew. “We’re interested in senior level leadership ultimately, so that means supporting people at this early stage.”

Getting Feedback

Conley has already reached out to her mentor Lori Lesser, a successful partner at Simpson Thacher. “We had a wonderful breakfast,” said Conley. “I knew the program would be tremendously beneficial, but it was more than I even expected after only our initial meeting.”

Drew and Wylde can relate—they remember the people along the way who helped them reach their own senior-level positions.

“I certainly recall when I got my first job at a bank many years ago,” said Wylde. “There was a woman who taught me how to be a banker. I think it’s important to make these connections; there just aren’t that many female role models at the top.”

Drew agrees, but she notes that it’s important to look beyond gender in the search for guidance. “I had three mentors who were really important. They showed me the kind of leader I might want to be,” she said. “One of them was a woman, and two were men. A mentor can be anyone—peers or superiors, men or women.”

That’s why the New York State program’s mentors are both male and female, even though the mentees themselves are all young women. “The bottom line is that professional success involves having a power base of people advising you, pushing you, and giving you feedback on how to be a professional in the world,” said Drew.

Both Wylde and Drew emphasize that this relationship is a two-way street. “The hope is to get some feedback as we go, so that both mentors and mentees get something out of the experience,” said Wylde.

Drew advised the mentees to bring their own value to the professional relationship. “A lot of mentees think, ‘What could I offer to this important person?’ But mentors actually gain a lot from these relationships as well,” she said. “So we’re looking forward to seeing what happens. I think this is important, and it’s definitely something we want to continue into the next year.”