Week 2 in review: Emerging Leaders begin their professional mentorships

By Amy Juelsgaard, Program Associate

The professional mentorship component of the TechWomen program began last week on September 19 with 137 professional mentors at 37 host companies throughout the Bay Area and Silicon Vallery. Of those 137 mentors, 91 are new and 46 are returning. Several new companies joined the program to host Emerging Leaders (ELs), including CyArk, Fitbit, Folsom Labs, PayPal, Qualcomm, Quid and Veritas. TechWomen continues to partner with companies, such as Symantec and Twitter, which have hosted ELs since the beginning of the program. Over the next couple of weeks, mentors and mentees will work on projects and professional development in line with the ELs’ goals.

Last week also included three events for the ELs.

Entrepreneurship Panel at Facebook

ELs heard from five Instagram employees, who discussed their roles at the company in addition to providing career advice. The panel included a Q&A session during which the ELs asked questions related to the challenges women face in the workplace, among other topics. The evening concluded with a networking session, where ELs had the opportunity to speak one-on-one with the panelists.

Leadership Workshop at LinkedIn

At LinkedIn, ELs spent the day learning about the different facets of leadership from several speakers. The founder of Mensch Ventures, Beth Steinberg, spoke about authentic leadership through character strengths, mindset and emotional intelligence. Following her presentation, Samantha Raniere, president of Raniere Consulting, helped the ELs decipher their results of the Gallup Strengths Finder test and taught them how to capitalize on those personal strengths within their action plan groups. In the afternoon, ELs heard from the Director of Diversity and Inclusion at Oracle, Barbara Williams Hardy, on the nine principles for achieving success and living life to the fullest. LinkedIn’s Vice President of Engineering for Consumer Products, Mohak Shroff, provided the keynote speech on harnessing what makes you different and finding your superpower to excel in your professional career. Jennine Heller, Executive Coach of JHeller Leadership Coaching, concluded the speaker portion of the event with a segment on how to network. Afterward, ELs had the opportunity to practice their new networking skills with TechWomen mentors in a networking reception.

I didn’t get here in spite of what made me different. I got here because of it. VP @LinkedInEng #techwomen16 pic.twitter.com/GK2y0dojjL

— Arezoo Riahi (@arezooriahi) September 23, 2016

Action Plan II Workshop at Mozilla

Anar Simpson, Special Advisor of Women, Girls and Technology at Mozilla, welcomed the Emerging Leaders and Impact Advisors to her company’s headquarters. During this event, the country cohorts and their Impact Advisors gained valuable information on the action plan deliverables from Rekha Pai Kamath, Board Member of Fast Forward and member in the New Business Incubation group at Juniper Networks. They also learned tips on pitching for Pitch Day on October 7 at Oracle. The morning included a panel on impact models for change, with moderator Joanne Liou, Communications and Impact Specialist for TechWomen, and panelists Rachel Katz, Director of Social Innovation at AngelHack, Larissa Shapiro, Diversity and Inclusion Lead at Mozilla and Anar, to introduce ELs to initiatives that they can expand in their communities. Each group had the opportunity to work on their action plans with their respective Impact Advisors and receive feedback from different Impact Advisors in the speed mentoring sessions.

With fellow Impact Advisor @EricaLockheimer #TechWomen16 Zimbabwe @maziofar @Muchanetah @gugumoyo @MilieVikani @hietari cc @AmbKumarGupta pic.twitter.com/0jkMprq54J

— Anar Simpson (@AnarSimpson) September 24, 2016

This weekend, ELs will volunteer in the Bay Area with one of five organizations that we are partnering with, including GRID Alternatives, Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, Educational Tall Ship, Project Open Hand and the Community Technology Network.

Stay up to date on the program highlights through daily coverage on Twitter and Instagram.