Mentoring Women in Business

Personalised, cross-border, online mentoring to enable a woman entrepreneur to fulfil her business potential.

Our gold-accredited Mentoring Women in Business programme exists because we know mentoring is transformative for mentees and mentors alike. It has supported over 6,000 women entrepreneurs as mentees.

Mentoring Women in Business was born from the belief in the power of mentoring, in the role technology can play in building connections, and in community as a powerful force for change.

By forging these elements together, we created a new way to support women entrepreneurs around the world to grow and strengthen their businesses and build their skills, confidence and knowledge.

Of mentees graduating in 2023...

99% gained business skills

98% progressed towards their own business objectives

93% improved one or more business outcomes (revenue, profit, employees, customers, savings)

Having a mentor means progress. It means results. I was able to achieve, make results, and make a lasting impact on people.

Kemi Amosu, founder of Women in Business Network and alumna mentee

Our bespoke online platform matches women entrepreneur mentees from low and middle income countries with business professional mentors anywhere in the world.

They work together for a year to forge and work towards a plan for the woman’s business and personal development based on her goals.  A strong mentoring partnership has incredible rewards for both mentee and mentor.

Applications are open now! If you’re interested in this life-changing opportunity, we encourage you to read the mentor or mentee guidelines and complete the online application form by 12 April.

Mentors and mentees collaborate for a year to work on the mentee’s personal development and business goals. Combining their strengths and talents they make inimitable strides together.

Mentees go on to achieve outstanding results, from revising business plans and strategies to launching products, gaining confidence, building skills, improving financial systems, growing networks and more!

Mentors reap similar rewards, gaining valuable knowledge of new cultures or industries, developing their listening, communications and leadership skills, and contributing to the success of another person and their business.

Learn more about becoming a mentee or mentor and read about their experiences.

Mentees and mentors are carefully matched to ensure the strongest, most mutually beneficial and impactful pairing, before embarking on a year of collaborating.

Perfected over ten years and learning from thousands of matches – our algorithm uses the information provided in your application to find the perfect mentoring partner.

The process prioritises creating pairs who share an alignment of topics and skills as well as practical elements like complimentary time zones. We find that matching based on the areas mentees want to focus on and the mentor’s expertise is preferable to matching by sector. For example, that could be planning, finance and accounting, leadership and management, marketing and communications or any other area related to business and professional development.

At the start of your relationship, we will invite you to attend a welcome webinar hosted by the Mentoring team, where you’ll be welcomed into the programme and receive important information about the upcoming year.

If selected, you’ll be invited to participate in online training.

The training ensures you can start the programme with the knowledge and tools needed for a productive mentoring relationship.

This builds a good foundation for starting the programme and helps you develop transferable skills.

It takes around 1.5 hours to complete and can be done in multiple sittings.

A few weeks after completing the training, each mentee will be carefully matched with a mentor.

If you are accepted as an independent, self-funded mentor, you will be contacted about funding your ‘match’ before the match is finalised.

After passing the training successfully, mentees will be invited to have a 15-minute phone call with one of our support team members. During the call, we will make sure you understand all elements of the programme and confirm your English language skills.

To ensure our pairs get the most out of their time together, the relationship is broken down into four key phases:

  • Phase 1: Get to know each other
  • Phase 2: Set the direction and goals
  • Phase 3: Work through the action plan and objectives
  • Phase 4: Reflection, conclusion, and graduation.

We know that everyone works differently, so in their pairs, the mentors and mentees decide precisely when to meet and for how long. We only specify that participants meet for at least two hours per month using our bespoke mentoring platform.

Our team will guide you every step of the way, offering dedicated support to ensure that pairs get the most out of your relationships and the online platform.

We’ll monitor progress and check in with you to see how each mentoring pair is doing.

The one-on-one mentoring relationship is at the heart of this programme, and these relationships are carried out entirely through our bespoke online mentoring platform.

Our recently redeveloped platform has been designed specifically to enable the pairs to forge bonds across borders, brainstorm solutions to challenges, collaborate on projects, and celebrate achievements.

It enables the pair to:

  • conduct video calls and share direct messages
  • track goals and manage tasks efficiently
  • upload and review files and documents
  • monitor and analyse their progress
  • easily track their individual learning
  • stay in touch with the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women support team.

Our dedicated support team assist the pairs throughout their journey.

The support team are particularly helpful in facilitating the mentor/mentee relationship and guiding the pairs to get the most out of their time together. Our programme is ideal if you’ve never been part of a mentoring programme before.

Additional support includes helping pairs with the logistics (i.e., connecting, finding times to meet), guidance on what meetings could consist of, outlining expectations at various points and assisting pairs in setting ground rules.

Community

When we work together, we achieve great things. Our private LinkedIn group is a place where participants network and connect with a growing global community of pioneering, ambitious entrepreneurs and professionals. Together, you can collaborate, share ideas, build networks, and support one another.

Webinars

Monthly webinars offer business advice on various topics led by experts from our network. Past topics have included: protecting your business against cybercrime, communicating with confidence, balancing life and work responsibilities, and business-to-business (b2b) selling.

Supported by our partners: