Nov 22, 2022
Mentoring can change your life and your career if done right. One of my standard guest questions asks who their #1 mentor has been and their impact. Most of my formal mentors have been local, as in the same city or at least country ad global mentorship has been limited perhaps by staid ideas of commonality, access and relevance in decades gone by.
Today I chat to Sahera Sumar, the Founder of a social enterprise
(profit for purpose) called Worldwide SHEroes or WWS. It focuses on
leadership capacity building, by empowering women of diversity and
disadvantage to rise to their leadership potential. Their global
mission is to support women to achieve economic equity and
inclusive leadership and to measure our impact using the UN
Sustainable Developmental Goals.
In Sahera’s words, this is not your mainstream women’s mentorship
program. They provide mentorship through global mentors
within 10 Industry categories, connecting women in the developed
world, with women who are from emerging economies. These
Mentors are senior women in C-suite, or senior mgt roles who are
passionately working with aspiring / emerging leaders from
countries such as Egypt, Syria. Afghanistan, India, Pakistan,
Malawi, Kenya, South Africa, Tajikistan and many more. Their
mentees come from international developmental agencies such as Aga
Khan Foundation, HOST International and Migrant Resource
Centers.
The global vision is for WWS to grow, establish meaningful and aligned partnerships so they can fully digitize our platform; strengthen our learning and development programs and build a greater awareness.
She is drawing upon her own many years of global corporate
experience in talent and leadership development to strengthen
leadership capability for international development projects and
capacity building projects. She Sahera utilises neuro-leadership,
positive psychology, and values-based leadership to develop
emotionally intelligent leaders and a well-being culture.
Inclusive mentorship and a global vision is what has resulted.
We discuss:
- What are the main ways the way we access leadership development changed in your experience?
- How exactly does global mentorship work best at a practical and impact level from your experience?
- What led you to form SHEroes and why focus on female leaders only?
- SHEroes recently celebrated its first birthday, and you now have 550+hours of mentoring under your belt, 60+ mentors and working in 35 countries. How do you plan to expand your reach into new geographies, industries and to begin working with First Nations Women globally.
- Take away: What is your final takeaway message for us on The Politics of Global Mentors?
CONTACT INFO:
LinkedIn: https://au.linkedin.com/in/saherasumar