LEADERS IN EXECUTIVE COACHING

Peninah Thomson was invited to contribute a chapter on the FTSE-100 Cross-Company Mentoring Programme to a book entitled “Mentoring: A Powerful Tool for Women” published on International Women’s Day by the EPWN (European Professional Women’s Network) as part of their Women@Work series. EPWN is sponsored by IBM and Deloitte and represents over 3,000 members from more than fifty different nationalities across all business sectors.

Peninah, who is co-founder and manager of the FTSE-100 Cross-Company Mentoring Programme, confirms that more than two years after its inception the Programme is making strong progress in achieving its objective of increasing the percentage of women executive and non-executive directors on FTSE-100 Boards. Examples of successes are detailed below.

• 8 out of 32 mentees have successfully moved into more senior positions (e.g. CEO, Non-Executive Director, Global Operations Director) with many other mentees in the process of planning next steps in their careers
• Awareness of female talent in non-executive director nomination circles has increased as many participating CEOs and Chairmen in the FTSE-100 Programme sit on several Boards, meet at formal/informal functions and exchange information about potential candidates
• Faced with the challenge of identifying a suitable mentee some companies participating in the Programme have been prompted to rethink their strategy for identifying, developing and managing female talent
• The programme has attracted interest amongst Ministers, companies and supporters both within and beyond the UK. A Cross-Company Mentoring programme inspired by the UK model is being launched in France in June, and similar Programmes are being designed in Canada and Australia