Mentoring Summit 2023: Leaders inspire Leaders

What an awesome spirit at the Advance Mentoring Summit 2023! It’s the pearl of our program: the Advance cross-industry mentoring is unique in Switzerland in terms of seniority level and scale. 100 mentees and mentors celebrated the completion of their year-long journey, while 120 new mentees came together for the kick-off and to meet their mentors for the first time. LEADERS INSPIRE LEADERS!

keys for a successful mentoring journey

From the mentor’s perspective, these are the keys for a successful mentoring journey :

• Listening to discover the mentee’s stories
• Not solving or telling, but asking and guiding with empathy – in a safe space with room for vulnerability
• Inspiring to jointly map out future stories and ensure clear intention and realistic goals

the biggest win

From the mentees’ points of view, the biggest wins are:

• Focus – clarity on what is key to be in connection with (and what not)
• Growth in confidence – grounded in core values to develop authentic leadership instead of thinking “I ought to be like…”
• Perspective setting and inspiration – to turn each challenge into an opportunity
• Cross-industry network – as a lever to exchange with peers and build life-long connections.

life-changing experiences

We whole-heartedly thank Dieter Goerdten, Head of Business Unit Banking Services and Member of the Executive Team SIX, and Tania Micki, CFO Tecan, for their wonderful opening notes. Three mentees were then invited on stage, where they openly shared their life-changing experiences during their mentoring year. Huge thanks for that go to Marta Gomez Alvarez, Nicole Lea Gut and Christin Schafhauser.

high-caliber mentors

Two panels with further high-caliber mentors such as Mari Haapala from ABB, Sabrina Borelli from Swiss Post, George Raeber from Straumann, Francesca De Rosa from AXA XL, Bianka Wilson from Camlog, and Mathias Gabler from Amag provided a wealth of personal stories and insights on career advancement. – A big warm thank you to all of you!

the magic lies in the matching

Last, but not least, a tremendous applause for Anne Halbritter, responsible for the Mentoring. Anne is the mastermind behind this program, now in its 10^th year, passionately pursuing to create the “matching magic” so that mentees and mentors mutually benefit to the max. Big thanks also to Regula Rütti and Mathilde Andersen, who have been a strong support to the enormously growing program.

The event was hosted by SIX in their fantastic Convention Point. Thank you so much to Patricia Gilliard and Pia Meinzer & team for making this happen. Your hospitality was simply great!

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Photos by Linda Pollari.