106 women involved, 43 couples, a reverse mentoring group with 8 senior mentees and 6 y-gen mentors. These are the big numbers of PWN Milan Mentoring Program for the 2017 edition.

On the 1st of February, at the  Closing Party, it was quite easy to distinguish the mentoring couples: the complicity they created was clear!

Each couple met 5 or more times during the project and spent at least 1 hour and a half talking every time. But have they found what they were looking for? How it was their experience?

“I wanted to develop my assertively skills” says Paola Ceruti, Compliance Expert for Crédit Agricole. Paola was matched with Jiska van der Kooji, a “body and mind” life coach from Holland. “The most incredible thing is that Jiska immediately understood my personal peculiarities, she helped me understand how to become more effective in the way I communicate to others” said Paola.

“We also chatted about our personal lives and emotions”, explained Jiska “If you remain behind the mask, it’s hard to cultivate your inner self”. Paola and Jiska had no cultural barrier to overcome: “ We used to speak both in Italian and in English. Language skills improvement was a plus” they said.

This couple define itself as a “well matched” one –actually the speed dating method for matching couples revealed to be one of the most appreciated tool of the project since it was introduced last year.

“The first time I met my mentor, was on Skype”, said Federica Grassi, Health and Market Access for the Biopharma industry. “I didn’t have the chance to meet my mentor during the speed dating: she was in London, I was in Milan”. Chiara Saraceno, an executive trainer based in London was matched to be Federica’s mentor: “I definitely got a positive charge off this experience” said Federica. “I didn’t know how my career path could develop, Chiara helped me to find out new ways of personal and professional improvements”.

Communication skills and Career development are actually two of the main areas of development Mentor and Mentees worked most, followed by Personal Branding and Emotional intelligence. Silvia Rigamonti and Laura Micciché, that coordinated the project, presented the results of the final survey among the participants of the last edition: 91,7% of interviewed declared that they considered the program helpful to meet their development goals. The big success of this edition is probably due to diverse factors: commitment and motivation, appreciation and benefits for both mentors and mentees  and the great experience for the Reverse Mentoring Group.

Would you like to live a Mentoring Experience too? Register now for the 2018 Mentoring Launch event on March 7.

More info on the 2018 Mentoring Program at the dedicated page.