Mentoring, the Right Tool to Build a Successful Managerial Career

"I felt the need for an external point of view on my professional situation, from a person with a similar university background but with more extensive experience. My mentor proved available and attentive and provided me with a practical method to effectively analyze my situation. She offered me a different and more proactive interpretation. Her story, in some ways opposite to mine, helped me remember how external factors do not define someone’s personality, but can influence one's career and be conducive or not to growth. I concluded my mentoring path by managing to regain confidence in myself and my abilities." This is how Valentina Zambelli, Brand and Customer Market Researcher at Lamborghini, describes her participation in the Bocconi Alumni Mentoring program. 

You may feel the need for a reliable and certain point of reference also when you have not yet entered the job market and are still finishing your studies. “At the beginning of my last year of university, uncertainty about the future became a nagging presence in my daily life,” confirms Hannah Karoline Balke. “However, thanks to the CEO Connect Program at Bocconi University, I had the opportunity to connect with a mentor whose sector is closely aligned with my career aspirations. My mentor invested time to build deep and meaningful conversations, not only about the FMCG sector but also about his personal journey as a managing professional. Thanks to our exchanges, I gained clarity about my strengths, aspirations and professional goals.”

Both testimonies highlight the less obvious but more valuable side of mentoring: it is a path that is built progressively. There is not even a predefined recipe, also because the mentor offers ideas and examples but it is up to the mentee to cultivate them personally. There are several mentoring programs activated by Bocconi University, each responding to a different need and involving various targets.

As mentees, Bocconi students are involved in three programs: CEO Connect-Your Executive Mentor, which sees the participation of CEOs of national and multinational companies to accompany students towards greater awareness of their professional aspirations; Changed by Women, a project to promote women’s empowerment in which role models among Bocconi Alumnae act as mentors of female students; and the Bocconi Mentoring Program, in which graduate students are supported in their entry in the job market by Bocconi Alumni having a maximum of five to seven years of work experience.

The Alumni Mentoring Program is instead a peer-to-peer program that involves Bocconi alums with a long professional experience in the role of mentors, and less senior alumnae and alumni as mentees. The objective is to reflect together on career goals and the plans to achieve them.

A further sign that mentoring is a journey, not an isolated event is the fact that for instance the Alumni Mentoring Program lasts about six months according to a calendar of meetings set by mutual agreement. Similarly, confirming that mentoring is a living relationship, CEO Connect, now in its fifth edition, “is a highly successful project: students consider it one of the most enriching experiences they have had at Bocconi and CEOs appreciate it very much also for the opportunity to interact with newer generations thanks to such motivated young people," underscores Antonella Carù, Dean for Development and Alumni Relations. "CEO Connect is an extraordinary opportunity for a selected group of students to meet chief executives of leading national and multinational companies from different sectors, who share aspects of their professional experience with their mentees, helping them to grow professionally and build a valuable network."

Furthermore, the direct relationship allows for meaningful personal enrichment. “Often the relationship between mentor and mentee continues well after the mentoring period. The mentor remains a point of reference for the mentee’s subsequent professional choices,” continues Bruno Mariani, Director of Employer Relations & Career Services at Bocconi University. This happens because the roots of this relationship lie in “a voluntary and selfless relationship where mentor and mentee evaluate objectives and expectations together. They establish a shared work plan,” adds Elisa Centelli, Head of Alumni and Supporters Engagement Italy & Asia. 

The Alumni mentoring program has a standard format and is implemented in various Chapters of the Bocconi Alumni Community in Italy and abroad. These Chapters adopt the same standard setting and, under the supervision of the Bocconi Career Service for Alumni, carry out the program semi-autonomously. To date, the Chapters that organize or have organized Alumni Mentoring programs are: Rome, Florence, Catania, Paris, New York, Amsterdam, Geneva and Athens. 

But why do alums and CEOs decide to become mentees? “In my professional and personal, or better yet, human journey, I have met people who have become valuable references and accompanied me in the most important professional choices. I feel very lucky and grateful. And that is why I applied for the Bocconi Alumni Mentoring program, to become a mentor myself and start giving back part of the value and support I have received. And to continue sharing and growing. Together,” says Francesca Pizzi, Head of Beauty Italy & Southern Europe at Dyson, who is the mentor of Valentina Zambelli. For Luca Colombo, Country Director of Meta Italy, “having contributed to the creation of Bocconi’s CEO Connect program and seeing it come to life has been an extraordinary experience that has enriched me professionally and personally. The quality, the stimuli and the challenges given by the students make the mentorship sessions incredibly rewarding. It has been a privilege to collaborate in the creation of this innovative program, which represents a real bridge between academia and business, and I am excited to see the future leaders who will emerge from this initiative.”