Mentors
Mentor qualifications
Mentors are people accomplished in business, public service, science and the arts who want to impart their leadership skills to the next generation. Mentors are special people — they need not only expertise in their field, but the patience and coaching skills essential to nurture and guide young people through the challenges of early adulthood.
Mentors must be prepared to commit to their mentoring relationship for at least one year. Mentors are expected to stay in close touch with their mentees via frequent emails, social media contacts, video messaging, and face-to-face meetings when possible.
Mentors should be comfortable offering not only business advice, but also life coaching to young people and students at the threshold of adulthood. Depending on the needs of the mentee, the mentor-mentee relationship may involve a substantial investment in time. Mentors may act as business advisors, older friends, surrogate parents, coaches, or casual advisors. Mentees are often on the threshold of adulthood, and rapidly learning about business and civic engagement. Mentors help them navigate these larger new worlds.
What do mentors do?
Mentors help their student mentees identify educational opportunities and learning resources, help them with career choices, and counsel them through rough patches.
When they are ready to start businesses young entrepreneurs need support with every stage of business development. From specific training in business practice to basic assistance with things like bookkeeping and financial management. YEMP mentors work with young entrepreneurs to ensure they have all the technical support they need to succeed.
Mentors may work with young leaders to identify small-scale development projects, to identify and secure sources of funds, and to help them organize and carry out their projects. While a mentee’s first entrepreneurial activity may be the founding of a small business, other projects may be focused on sustainable development, education, and local community service.
Mentor’s build trust with their entrepreneurial mentees by engaging their ideas and vision. They share their business and personal experiences including their successes and failures. They listen to their mentee’s go-to market strategy and ideas , they review their business plans, and they ask critical questions to diagnose the idea or business model. This engagement helps the mentor understand the skills and talents of the entrepreneur, and to advise them to fill in the gaps.
- Mentors are genuinely interested in helping their mentees attain their goals.
- They recognize coachable moments in a conversation.
- They plant the seeds of ideas that haven’t yet occurred to their mentee.
- They develop and nurture the relationship by sharing experiences.
- They demonstrate the values of both persistence and adaptability.
Becoming a mentor
Do you want to be come a transnational mentor to enterprising youth? Do you have the desire, aptitude, an willingness to commit you time to nurture the talents and ideas of the next generation of entrepreneurs? If so, contact us to join this mentoring program today.