July 2019
If you haven’t heard yet, Swiss alumni are stepping up to support our gender parity in business efforts by participating in the IWIB Mentoring Program. Launched in 2017, the program is open to alumni of all genders and across all generations. Upcoming events and dates are posted on the IWIB page on insead.ch. We encourage all past and current members of the program to join the networking events to keep in touch and get to know other participants, as well.
In meantime, here are the highlights of this year’s cohort.
The 2019 Cohort
There are 44 participants enrolled in this year’s program. It’s an impressive figure considering Switzerland’s size. France also has the same number of mentoring participants in its current cohort. We would like to thank the 22 mentors that contribute their time and energy, making this year’s program a success again. We were anticipating a decline in application numbers after the novelty effect of 2017-18 wore off, so we were positively surprised with these numbers.
Gender Ratios
The gender balance ratio is nearing 50/50 across both chapters’ mentee pools. It’s remarkable to achieve such a balance as women represent about 13% of the alumni population in Switzerland*. At INSEAD the current enrollment of women in the MBA program is 35%. We have seen, however, a decline in the absolute number of women volunteering for the mentor pool compared to the pilot year, bringing the ratio across mentee and mentor pools to about 1/3 women. It is difficult to read too much into it, after all two data points do not make for a robust trendline. We hope sharing this fact will let our Swiss alumnae know we are eager to see their applications rolling in for the 2020 program. Let’s make this year’s slight decrease in women mentees, compared to last year, an anomaly and not a trend.
New Tools – the Mentoring Toolkit
This year we rolled out a very comprehensive mentoring toolkit to support the journey for Swiss alumni throughout the year. It is for both mentees and mentors. It was sent by email to all alumni participating in the program. If you haven’t received the file, please contact your local IWIB committee to have it resent.
2020 Mentoring Program
The 3rd edition is just around the corner and we will be collecting further feedback on the 2019 program beforehand. We strongly encourage women graduates to participate both as mentors and mentees in the next edition this fall. Remember, this program is for all alumni at all stages of their professional life.
2020 Mentoring Program
The 3rd edition is just around the corner and we will be collecting further feedback on the 2019 program beforehand. We strongly encourage women graduates to participate both as mentors and mentees in the next edition this fall. Remember, this program is for all alumni at all stages of their professional life.
INSEAD Alumni Association Switzerland
Laurence Amand-Jules, IWIB President Geneva
Mafalda Tenente, IWIB President Zurich
Mary Antenen, IWIB Mentoring Zurich
Anne-Claire Moulin, IWIB Mentoring Geneva
events@insead.ch