Women Ahead Ltd Registered in England & Wales, Company Registration No.9054784

Women in SportAre They the Two Missing Ingredients in YourCompany’s Mentoring Programme?

In September 2014, Women Ahead –a team of global experts in coaching, mentoring and leadership development- are launching a flagship mentoring programme that offers corporate partners the unique opportunity to provide mentors for sportswomen (both female professional athletes and women in leadership roles in the sporting world).

There are many perspectives and insights that can be shared between the world of business and sport. Structured, effective mentoring, particularly for women, generates two-way learning, improves career progression and increases confidence.

"Sport has the power to change the world…. It is more powerful than governmentin breaking down barriers." - Nelson Mandela

In order to fulfil their potential, today’s elite and professional sportswomen need not only to excel on the field, but also to develop a broad range of qualities and capabilities off the field, including resilience, branding, visibility, social capital and influencing skills. This programme will enable a pilot group of sportswomen to benefit from the challenge of a mentoring relationship with a senior leader who has successfully navigated their own career.

Rather than selecting mentors from the world of sport, this initiative challenges the status quo by inviting senior people in business to provide fresh insight as mentors to sportswomen. Liz Dimmock, Women Ahead’s founder, believes that business leaders and sportswomen can provide“Stimulating mentoring and be inspiring role models to these committed female athletes and leaders”.

When effectively designed and managed, formal mentoring makesa positive impact on organisation, women and men, and mentors andmentees. Research shows that well-designed and well-executedprogrammes are well worth the investment.- Catalyst, 2010

Women Ahead Ltd Registered in England & Wales, Company Registration No.9054784

Partner benefits:

The opportunity to mentor provides a unique platform to develop your people’s capabilities and skills, as well as scope for two-way learning (challenging assumptions, providing new insights and perspectives)

Be part of a force for change – with only 0.04% of sports sponsorship currently going into women’s sport,the playing field is far from level.

Develop and support women in leadership - "Companies with a higher proportion of women intheir top management have better financial performance."- Women Matter, McKinsey & Company, 2007

The support of a world-class mentoring team, who will deliver the training, supervision and evaluation to help you, your people, and the sportswomen they mentor derive maximum benefit

Inspiration from positive sporting role models The opportunity to externally showcase your commitment to women and women’s sport, and the

opportunity to internally promote and galvanise your women’s, CSR and people development strategies around a single, unique and exciting programme.

"The barriers women face are rooted in society more broadly,not just the workplace."- Project 28-40, The Report. Opportunity Now and PWC, 2014

Getting involved

Women Ahead are seeking a limited number of corporate partners to provide mentors, each providinga minimum of five leaders. These mentors will receive a comprehensive one-to-one or group briefing around their role, the skills of mentoring, and will have ongoing supervision with a mentoring expert. They will be matched with an appropriate sportswoman(mentee) and asked to provide 8 – 12 hours of mentoring time over the period of a year.This can be a mixture of face-to-face and virtual.

At the end of the mentoring programme, corporate partners will be presented with a full evaluation report, including in-depth interviews, with relevant publicity around their support for women in sport.

Next stepsPlease contact us to hear more about the programme, how this could align to your internal learning strategy and what the fee structures look like.

Please contactLiz Dimmock, Founder: liz@women-ahead.org 01189 406828, 07787 110170Melanie Hill, Client Partner:mel@women-ahead.org01189 406828, 07791 101155 

Women Ahead Ltd Registered in England & Wales, Company Registration No.9054784

About Women AheadWomen Aheadare a team of global experts in coaching, mentoring and leadership development who have designed and delivered over 250 programmes around the world.

We will draw on best-practice materials, training and techniques to develop mentors and mentees. Further detail about Women Ahead and our consultants available on request.

Additional information about this flagship programme Most sports people will admit to seeking the advice of a more experienced player/athlete at some point in their sporting career, even if it by observation of their performance on track, field or court. However, there is a paucity of research available around how mentoring impacts sports people, particularly females and although the technical, tactical and physical skills are effectively developed by sports coaches, together with mindset around performance- pre, during and post sporting activity, many of the key factors that a female athlete or player would benefit from support with, tend to be neglected. In addition, a hidden culture of distrust and inappropriate use of power can be created in some of the professional sporting performance coaching relationships that exist.

Within this context and void, Women Ahead are launching mentoring for women in sport to create holistic support in all areas of their personal growth. Liz Dimmock, Lead Partner of Women Ahead describes Women Ahead’s model of mentoring as:

‘A developmental dialogue between two individuals characterised by trust, empathy and honesty, which encourages the holistic growth of the mentee and involves support, role modelling, some guidance and develops both mentors and mentees’.

In parallel with the mentoring activity, the Women Ahead Research Team will be undertaking qualitative in-depth interviews with over 50 sports women, in order to uncover the reality of some of the issues, challenges, concerns and coping strategies that women face in a sporting career. With this understanding established and the evaluation from the mentoring activity captured, more informed recommendations and concepts about mentoring and the efficacy of mentoring women in sports will be developed by mid 2015.

Women Ahead Ltd Registered in England & Wales, Company Registration No.9054784