Stonegate’s Female Mentoring enters second year

Stonegate Group’s Female Mentoring Scheme kicked off its second year last week, welcoming 30 women onto the programme, joining a further 16 who are continuing from the previous year.

The scheme was originally introduced in 2019 after the company identified a lower representation of women in senior roles. As a result, Stonegate commissioned an external consultant to carry out research across the business in an effort to understand the cause. The study concluded that self-belief, confidence and leadership skills were the three main areas that women within the business felt they could improve on to achieve their goals. This ongoing initiative aims to address these areas through the mentor/mentee relationships built within the scheme.

In its first year, the initiative saw 31 high-performing women paired with senior executives, and resulted in one mentee being promoted to the Leadership Team and three general managers promoted to area manager designate after successfully completing Stonegate’s Aspirations course, part of the in-house Albert’s Theory of Progression.

“We’re delighted to welcome our next group of mentees onto the Female Mentoring Programme and equally delighted to welcome back so many from last year’s cycle," says Lee Woolley, director of learning and organisation development at Stonegate. "It is testament to the success of the programme, that not only can we boast four outstanding promotions as a result of the scheme, but that so many have taken such value from the last 12 months that they have chosen to continue.

“Due to its success, we hope to expand the programme over the coming months to offer its benefits to more women within the business and welcoming new mentees every six months. It’s a pleasure to work in a business where we can actively seek out ways to improve our employees’ professional experience and action them so positively.”

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