Women hold only 33.5% of leadership roles in business globally, according to a GrantThornton 2024 report, a report stressing that it is up to business leaders – men and women – to close that gap. Understanding the difference between mentorship and sponsorship – and stepping up to fill those roles – is one way to get women closer to parity.
YPO members Debby Carreau, CEO and Founder of Inspired HR; Zoe Cunningham, Director of Softwire; and Bukola Smith, CEO of FSDH Merchant Bank Ltd., addressed this challenge during the latest episode of YPO Presents: Accelerating Women Leaders Through Mentorship and Sponsorship.
Cunningham, a YPO member in London, describes a mentor as someone with applicable subject-matter expertise offering guidance; sponsorship is more about advocacy, especially in the rooms where decisions are made.
“A mentor is someone senior in the same area who has information they can share,” Cunningham explains. “I think that’s the relationship that we’ve seen most. A sponsor, on the other hand, is someone who is going to promote you within the organization. You can sponsor someone without ever speaking with them. It’s about what you’re saying to other people in the room.”
She continues, “For me, sponsorship and mentorship always go hand in hand, because I find once I get to know someone at a mentoring level, I get this real appreciation for the skills they have and what they have to bring. So, it’s very natural to sponsor them.”
Carreau, a YPO member from British Columbia, points out that women are over-mentored and under-sponsored. As women, she says, “We tend to put our heads down and work hard, and we don’t necessarily say, ‘look at me’ or ‘look at so and so, they deserve a promotion.’”
Before Smith, a YPO member in Nigeria, became a CEO, she had a CEO sponsor who helped accelerate her career by assigning her stretch roles and advocating for her behind closed doors.
Agreeing with Carreau, she says finding mentors is not the challenge for women. “But they haven’t been able to get many people to sponsor them. We tend to do the work, but we are not very visible,” she says.
We are in this together
While women who have broken through glass ceilings can offer the next woman leader an opportunity to follow, Smith, Carreau and Cunningham stress that male allies are essential in accelerating women’s careers.
“Even today, most leadership positions are held by men,” Carreau explains, adding that data shows that women have taken a step back in terms of promotion since the pandemic. “We’ve still got a long way to go.”
— Debby Carreau, CEO, Inspired HR share
Giving everyone in your organization a stake in the conversation is important, Cunningham explains. She calls it “gender allyship” with the goal of achieving mutual advocacy.
“This is an important part of my sponsorship,” Cunningham says. “I don’t want to promote women just for the sake of having women in roles and ticking a box. I see this vast amount of untapped talent that I can use to deliver on my business objectives.”
Smith emphasizes the importance of including men in the solution-building process and highlights that collaboration, not competition, is key.
“Sometimes, as women, we forget to bring the men in when we are having these conversations. Many men support and agree that women need to be brought into the room, so getting them to be part of the programs we’re developing actually helps.”
She adds that it is vital that, “We don’t see ourselves in competition with the men, but we see that there’s room to collaborate.”
Agreeing, Carreau adds, “We all need to become better leaders. All of our economies need help. Our businesses need help. We need all our intellectual capital to achieve our goals.”
Best practices for mentorship, sponsorship success
Smith’s framework for successful mentorship and sponsorship in her organization begins with creating clear goals and metrics and including them as part of your talent and DEI strategies. But Carreau cautions that mentorship does not replace performance management.
Include a variety of formats, such as one-on-one, speed mentoring, peer mentoring, even reverse mentoring, plus create a matching process, expect accountability and continuously evaluate progress and adjust as necessary.
To create a diverse workforce, Cunningham says, you need parity in three distinct areas.
“You need parity in hiring,” she says. “And then you need to promote people at the same rates.” And, she adds, “You need to not have people leave in disproportionate numbers. They’re all part of the same triangle.”
A safe space in YPO
Carreau, Cunningham and Smith, each from their different corners of the world, find a safe space at YPO to discuss topics such as this. Both Cunningham and Smith, who joined in 2016 and 2022, respectively, say they find value in YPO’s peer-to-peer learning. Carreau, a member since 2011 and YPO’s next Global Chairman who will begin her term in July 2025, says the trust, candor and vulnerability she finds at YPO are rare in traditional business environments.
