Women can benefit from mentoring.

Mariana Vega.

On Saturday March 5/2016, I attended the inaugural Mentoring Walk to celebrate the International Women’s Day, (March 8th). Rendez Vous and Vital Voices hosted this event, and a panel discussion with the purpose of empowering women to grow professionally and become leaders.

Maria Gabriela Hoch, Vital Voices Argentina Honorary President & Co-founder, conducted the event. Natalia Martínez-Kalinina, General Manager at CIC, facilitated the discussion and the distinguished guests were Teresa Weintraub, Managing Director at Merrill Lynch, and Emily Berlin, Senior Consultant at Global Power Generation, SoEnery International.

As I expected, most of the audience were young women like myself, but there were a couple of men who attended as well. Natalia asked several questions to let us know more about Emily and Teresa, so we could have a better understating of their experiences and their ideas on how valuable is a good mentorship.

Teresa and Emily came from different backgrounds, and I found more similitudes with Teresa’s experiences. I am an immigrant from Mexico, as she is one from Cuba; therefore, I knew exactly what she meant when she said she was raised in a ‘’Traditional family”. Even though things have changed over time, in Latin American countries, there is still this traditional idea that women are responsible to raise children and take care of the house. Fortunately, people have started to realize the importance of two incomes in a household, and how women bring so much to the table when it comes to business. However, there are many women in those countries, who do not have any support or advice from other successful women or associations, on how to become the professionals they aspire to be.

Not everyone is lucky enough to have mentors in their lives, as Emily mentioned, she felt she never had one and took advice from many people she met in her life, but there are many other women such as Teresa or myself, that having mentors has changed our life.

To be a mentor, is more than just giving advice; it is a give and take – a two-way relationship.  In other words, it takes time, trust has to be developed and you need to get to know each other deeply. Nonetheless, there is not a restriction to have just one mentor; you may seek to have different mentors in different points in life.

Personally, I consider mentoring a critical component to career success. I have had three different mentors so far, Tere Fueyo, Max Vega and Ray Gee. Three people that have changed my life, not only for their belief in me, but most importantly, for making me believe in myself.  Two of them should be called my sponsors; “a sponsor is someone who really has your back, someone who has probably invested in you, and who is going to be with you along your way” as Teresa Weintraub said.

I truly considered myself to be very lucky to have them in my life, giving me advice, and wanting to see me as successful as I project myself to be. We all need a little help, someone who in difficult times will have our back or remind us how strong we are, someone who will believe in our dreams and who will help us to reduce the chances of failing due to their own experience.

I had a wonderful time attending the panel discussion, and it gave me time to reflect on all the positive impact a person can have in our lives, and how nothing will ever be enough to thank them for their time.

Finally, I want to invite all professionals, especially in Latin American countries, to give your knowledge and time to young professionals, to share your experience and support someone who has the desire to be successful. Moreover, I encourage women who need advice to seek for it; there are plenty of professionals, acquaintances and relatives that would be happy to do it. If you don’t find someone you can relate to, just remember there are many ways to get advice.

Spanish VERSION : Las mujeres se pueden beneficiar de recibir orientación profesional, al igual que de brindarla – IDEAS4SOLUTIONS 2016