In the competitive world of corporate finance advisory, as in all areas of accountancy, the importance of developing future leaders from well-rounded advisers cannot be overstated. A strong learning culture lies at the heart of many firms and support is given throughout an individual’s career. 

While formal training programmes play a key part in continuous development, some of the most impactful learning comes through one-to-one conversations, sometimes in a formal environment, but often not. Such mentoring support is central to helping advisers both technically and on their career journey. 

It’s about more than individuals: it’s about developing a culture of mentoring as an essential part of a firm’s DNA. This will shape the future leaders of a firm, foster a culture of continuous learning and in the end play a key role in ensuring the long-term success of the firm. 

For Jon Stubbings, Grant Thornton Transaction Advisory Services Partner, mentoring has been important in his professional development. “I received a lot of support on the path to becoming a partner,” he says. “Then, when I first became a partner, my mentors were so helpful in enabling me to navigate the big change in my role.”

This demonstrates that mentoring should not simply occur at a single point in an individual’s career. As advisers reach senior partner level, when many might expect them to take on the role of mentor rather than mentee, new challenges will present themselves that they haven’t had to navigate before. 

Effective mentoring

When working on transactions, a guiding hand can have a tremendous impact on the success of the deal. Technical mentoring may often be the realm of a senior manager rather than a partner, but partners can still share their expertise. Where partners can make the biggest difference is in providing insights and advice on navigating corporate culture, internal and external stakeholder relationships and office politics, as well as general leadership skills. 

“At Grant Thornton we have several different ways of looking at mentoring,” says Stubbings. “There are formal programmes where we assign individuals a career mentor, but informal mentoring is probably even more important, and it happens on every single job, in every single situation and on a daily basis.”

It’s clear to see how mentees can benefit, but what about the mentors? Increased support for rising talent benefits the firm; with recruitment and retention among the biggest challenges facing firms today, making people feel valued and ensuring they can see a clear pathway ahead is essential. Developing the leaders of the future secures the longer-term success for the firm. 

Mentoring also plays an important role in DEI initiatives. Many partners will actively support people from demographic groups that are underrepresented in senior leadership positions and the firm may promote this as well. Grant Thornton has a particular focus on social mobility, says Stubbings. Alongside colleagues at Grant Thornton, he’s volunteered for the One Million Mentors programme, where he mentors school- and college-age students. 

Many mentors enjoy helping other people, particularly when they see mentees progress and achieve their goals. Not every motivation needs to be commercial: the good feeling from investment in someone else’s future can easily be reward enough. 

Building a culture that encourages both formal and informal mentoring relationships is central to securing the future success of the individuals being mentored and the long-term sustainability of the firm. 

Matchmaking

When a formal mentoring relationship is set up, it’s important to ensure it is thought through. Here are a few questions to consider when matching individuals. 

• Can the mentor be objective? They shouldn’t be in the direct reporting line of the person they are mentoring because of the possibility of conflicts of interest.
• Will the mentor understand the challenges faced by the mentee? People are often more comfortable being mentored by someone from a similar background, for example, many women will want female mentors, and people from underrepresented ethnic groups would prefer a mentor from the same ethnicity. Of course, that may not always be possible. 
• Will the mentor challenge the mentee’s ideas? The danger of mentor and mentee being too similar in approach is that no new ideas are introduced to the process or there is push-back on ideas.
• What is the chemistry like between mentor and mentee? They don’t have to be best friends – in fact, that can be counter-productive – but they have to respect each other and feel comfortable having open, honest conversations.

Andy Lopata, author of six books on networking and professional relationships, host of ‘The Connected Leadership’ podcast, and co-author (with Dr Ruth Gotian) of the Financial Times Guide to Mentoring.

A longer version of this article appears in Corporate Financier, the Corporate Finance Faculty’s magazine.