Many young women struggle to pursue promotion and advancement in the corporate and business world because they are not seeing examples of other women in positions of leadership and power. However, female to female mentoring may provide the tools necessary to change that.
This past fall, Robert Morris launched a new initiative to enrich female students and foster leadership through a mentor program, pairing freshmen students with upperclassmen, faculty, staff, or professional mentors to form mutually beneficial relationships. The group, called Women's Leadership and Mentorship Program, currently has two cohorts of women.
This weekend, Robert Morris will host a Women and Transformational Leadership Symposium, which will allow for these young women to network and discuss challenges in the career world.
Jada Grandy is the keynote speaker at tonight’s kick-off event and a passionate advocate of mentorship. She’s an RMU grad and the Senior Vice President and Community Reinvestment Act Strategies Director at Fifth Third Bank, and has the benefits of female to female mentoring first hand in a primarily male-dominated industry.
“Mentoring is an art. It’s about forming that mutually beneficial relationship between two people. One that knows a little bit more than someone else, but willing to share and disperse that knowledge to help them to move forward,” Grandy says.
In her speech tonight, Grandy hopes to inspire, educate, and empower women to be proactive in becoming a mentor or mentee.
“We as women really have a duty and an obligation to really be able to support each other, to break the barriers that sometimes exist in different industries and in different fields,” Grandy says.
Grandy encourages potential mentors to not be afraid to reach out to a mentee, and heartens women to get away from the fear to ask.
“Seek out someone that you see great potential in, and be intentional about it.”
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