Why creating role models and mentors are key for female entrepreneurship
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Since the launch of the Women Mean Business campaign, Theresa May has set up a committee dedicated to women’s issues and the Treasury is launching a review into the equity funding gap. The campaign has also been regularly firing out British female founder's tales of triumph.
The media’s responsibility to set the agenda and create role models, are key building blocks in bridging the equity funding gap. Another building block is mentoring: good policy provides the foundations, role models get the cogs turning, and mentors keep the momentum going.
The notion of a mentor derives from Homer's The Odyssey, where Mentor, a wise, old and caring man looks after Telemachus, Odysseus' son. Nothing much has changed since 800 BC – men have been cementing mentors across the generations through schools, universities and men’s clubs. In 2018, however, we are finally seeing the advent of female focused business organisations to rival men’s.
For example, Blooms London and Albright are both female focused working spaces cultivating colonies of mentorship, empowerment and positivity.
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Mentorship is particularly necessaryin the realm of entrepreneurship: seasoned entrepreneurs can share their knowledge with nascent founders. Alison Cork, founder of Make It Your Business thinks mentoring can help to eliminate imposter syndrome: “Women respond powerfully to other female mentors, as they are uniquely positioned to understand the particular practical and emotional challenges that face an aspiring entrepreneur.”
Mentoring has facilitated the rise of female entrepreneurship across the globe: from Greece to Peru, mentorship schemes are cropping up like dandelions in Spring. At a recent female led mentorship programme in Greece, 58 per cent of participants said they found the programme opened doors, and 75 per cent said they formed a long lasting professional relationship.
Mentoring may have been born in the Bronze age, but mentoring styles still haven't been perfected. Modern approaches emphasise that women benefit from a wide array of mentors, not just someone in the same field as the mentee. Other approaches suggest finding a mini-me.
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Yet there seems to be a lack of supply: nearly half of women entrepreneurs state that a challenge facing their business is the lack of available mentors, especially if they haven’t graduated from a business school or been accepted onto an accelerator programme, according to the Kauffman Foundation.
Inspirational stories in the media create the spark for future female entrepreneurs, and mentoring programmes follow through. As part of its review into the funding gap, the Government should look into the most effective way to mentor female founders. But when it comes to action, the Government should not be too heavy handed.
Government can be a great convener in swinging open the doors of Downing Street, and providing mentors and mentees with their mentoring ‘meet cute’. But the private sector is probably best placed to play Cupid in the business of matchmaking mentees and mentors.
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We, for example, support our Female Founders Forum project by holding speed-dating style mentoring sessions in Barclays Eagle Labs across the UK. But mentoring is not exclusive to female entrepreneurship: whether you’re a budding writer, auditor or carpenter, you should be on the look-out for a mentor.
Former secretary of state, Madeleine Albright said: “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other.” Albright’s right: mentoring matters.
Sophie Jarvis is Head of the Female Founders Forum at The Entrepreneurs Network
