Since the company’s inception in 2021, Mentor Her was a staunchly "women's only" platform, but that's all about to change.
Today, the company announced that men would be allowed to participate in their six-week and six-month mentorship programs to help close the gender gap in the corporate world and entrepreneurship. Mentor Her was formed in the middle of the pandemic, at a time where women were starting businesses, pivoting career roles, and feeling the strain of the work/life balance more than ever.
After years of work, the gender gap was beginning to widen once more and Mentor Her founder Katie Doyle saw an opportunity to get women the help they needed by learning from another woman in their field. On the success of their six-week program, they have matched over 3,000 women across multiple industries, generations, and professions.
With their 98% effective rate across matches, the company’s work has resulted in hundreds of businesses started and careers accelerated as a result of Mentee’s hand-matched Mentor. The online programs run worldwide and have matched Mentors and Mentees in Australia to Vancouver, Delhi to Gaborone, Dubin to Berlin.
On their programs, Mentees and Mentors receive weekly material, inspiring workshops, and networking calls, in-person events and full support from the Mentor Her team. Over one hundred applications have been received by men through the company to date, which were politely declined- and, since there has never been a shortage of altruistic female executives and entrepreneurs to take part, it was all easily managed.
But with a looming recession, a stalemate on gender leadership percentages narrowing and the world of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion beginning to change shape, Mentor Her took the vote to their community who responded almost evenly, but has today resulted in men being allowed to come onto the platform. Many of the Mentors on Mentor Her's programs have advocated for their male colleagues, told stories of their own inspiring Mentors and the sponsorship they've received in their own careers having come from both women, and men.
Men want to help women succeed, to develop their businesses to new heights and grow the skills needed to move into leadership. It had been a problem posed for years by the founding team- if Mentor Her is excluding people based on gender, doesn’t this result in its own discrimination of a kind?
And, not only that, if men are the presiding figures at the heads of companies and at the helm of multi-million euro businesses, won't they also have incredible knowledge to share with Mentees? But, in a small focus group with past Mentees and Mentors, there was some upset.
The company has prided itself on being a safe space for women to talk about their issues in the workplace and in business, that often end up being gender-specific. On networking calls, issues like endometriosis, infertility, motherhood and even harassment have been brought up in a place where it is safe to do so.
Mentees feel more secure on sign-up, knowing that their Mentor will be a woman- especially for those who have faced discrimination or harassment in the past. The idea of women supporting women is what the company was founded on- from their mission to their social media posts- and that won't be going away.
Mentor Her will now also host women-only networking calls, to make sure that those issues are still addressed, while workshops will now feature men and women guests, and Mentees will be allowed to choose whether they would prefer a male or female Mentor - a choice that will be honoured. By bringing men onto their programs, Mentor Her hopes to empower more women to pursue leadership positions, start and grow businesses and eventually close that gender gap in employment and self-employment.
With the beginning of wage-gap reporting in Ireland last year, Mentor Her is now working with companies across the country and further afield, to bring new and exciting mentorship opportunities to their employees to close internal gaps in leadership and hiring by focusing on the personal development of individuals. As we say from the recent Women in the Workplace 2023 report by McKinsey, there are only three to four percentage point changes in representation at manager and director level for women since 2018 and the “Great Breakup” follows The Great Resignation as director-level women next in line for senior-leadership are leaving at a higher rate than previous years and at a notably higher rate than men at the same level- leaving fewer women in line for top positions.
While BoardEx calculates that only 8.2% of CEO positions in the S&P500 are held by women and less than 10% of VC funding going to companies with female founders. Mentor Her hopes that by bringing men into their mentorship programs they will see gaps like this begin to narrow once more.
Anyone can sign up to be a volunteer Mentor on Mentor Her's popular six-week program, or elect to become a paid Mentor by becoming a Certified Mentor, taking part in 3 courses that launch next week including "The Art of Mentorship: How to Become an Impactful Mentor", "The History of Women at Work in the West" and "Understanding Women at Work" which will encourage men and women to look at the benefits of women on their boards and top positions ahead of International Women's Day on Friday, March 8th.
Katie Doyle, founder of Mentor Her, says: “We're so excited to be opening our doors for men to join us as Mentors on our six-week and six-month programs.
“We know that women are struggling both at work and at home and we want to make sure our Mentees have access to the best talent in their industries to help their career and businesses thrive. Our company’s mission has been about women-supporting-women for a long time - but women are going to need all the help they can get to stay in the workforce, in developing their businesses and managing that elusive work/life balance, especially with all the uncertainty coming down the line.
“It’s everybody’s job, and for everybody’s benefit, that women stay in the workplace, move to senior leadership positions, and grow successful businesses around the world. Men included.”
