Mentoring Program 1st Anniversary - March 22nd, 2005

The Mentoring Program 1st Anniversary was a successful evening. Guest Speaker Ms. Christine Ng, IBM, shared with us about their in-house mentoring program being IBM's global HR initiative in making itself a dynamic company for women to work for. Christine also shared with us her role in the Program as both a mentor and a protégé and how she benefited from such involvement. Below is a highlight of her speech.

IBM's mentoring program covers mainly:
* skills development
* career development
* certification of profession
* women diversity
* eMentoring for students with schools under partnership

Key aspects of a good mentor candidate:
* positive role model
* active in his professional community
* respected by peer and management
* someone you admire
* enthusiastic in being a mentor, willing to teach
* team spirit

Key considerations before you take on a mentor assignment:
* do you have time within the period of time required for such assignment to spare with the mentee?
* what's in it for you?

Key principles of the mentoring relationship:
* clear goals and measurements for both sides
* show respect and appreciation to the relationship throughout the interaction

A panel of program participants, below, also shared with us how their involvement over the past year has impacted their personal and professional growth; those who recently joined the program also shared what they hope to gain from the supportive network.

Janet Spence (Mentor) - Head of Human Resources, Hongkong Land; Eleanor Sackett (Mentor) - Executive Director, Matilda Sedan Chair Race Charities Fund; Amy Tam (Protégé) - Solicitor, Richards Butler; Phoebe Lam (New as Protégé) - Finance Editor/Content Manager, Quam Limited, staff from our 2005 Program Sponsor Zuliyana Palwankar (New as Protégé) - recently relocated to HK with husband from Germany.

A detailed post-event write-up will be available soon.