Why did you decide to become a mentor?
Mentorship is a two-way type of relationship. On the one end, the mentor gets to share what they’ve learned throughout their career with others, helping them grow and develop further by avoiding the same mistakes or shortening their learning curve. On the other, the mentor gets exposure to a variety of experiences and different business contexts by working closely with their mentees, especially through a platform like Mentorcruise. At a fundamental level, this is why I became a mentor years ago within Amazon and why I have consistently mentored dozens of people throughout the years. I find it an extremely enriching experience and seeing people grow in their careers, land better jobs, learn new skills, see things through a different lens or get promoted in their current role because of the work done together is deeply fulfilling.
How did you get your career start?
I started my career as as a Finance Analyst and after an initial 6-month internship, I landed my first full time role within the Amazon Transportation Controllership team in Luxembourg where I ended up staying 3.5 years. In that span of time, I was promoted twice and managed to relocate to the UK. There, I eventually transitioned out of Finance and moved on to become a Senior Program Manager within the Amazon Shipping team. The progress I was able to accomplish early on in my career was positively impacted by the mentors I had a the time and their ability to help me learn about paths outside of Finance, which was always what I wanted to pursue. When it came to deciding between Program, Project or Product Management, having a mentor that went through similar motions was invaluable.
What do mentees usually come to you for?
Given how varied my background is, I have mentored people on a fairly wide array of topics and challenges. I have had people who wanted to strengthen their data analytical skills and learn how to model complex business scenarios in Excel as well as people who were new to managing a team and wanted support handling difficult conversations. More recently I have mentored people who wanted to transition into program management as well as people that wanted help improve their team’s mechanisms to ensure better accountability and transparency through their space. Regardless of one's challenges, it is always helpful to get a second opinion on matters or brainstorm through problems with someone else, and I couldn't recommend mentorship enough.
What's been your favourite mentorship success story so far?
I have recently mentored someone who wanted to launch their own business and wanted the support from someone who had been in startup-like environments within an established company like Amazon. Over the course of our sessions, we drafted a business plan and created a dynamic and versatile forecasting model like one would within a company like Amazon. It was a really valuable experience for the mentee who had never worked within large corporations, and it helped me better appreciate some of the challenges business owners go through in their day-to-day.
What are you getting out of being a mentor?
Having mentors throughout my career helped me grow and improve tremendously, both professionally and personally. If I can have a fraction of the impact mentors have had on my development on other's, that for me makes it all worth it and that's why I've decided to be a mentor myself. At a more personal level though, working closely with mentees across different industries and background has improved my own abilities as a business leader and as a team manager. My empathy and my emotional intelligence have both improved and I've become a more relatable leader thanks to the work done with several mentees through the years.