It’s Not a Pipeline Issue, It’s a Sponsorship Issue (Part 2)
How You & Your Company Can Make an Impact
I spoke to Jhaymee Tynan about how sponsorship can change the career trajectory for women of color and how it can impact DE&I efforts in your organization. Read on to hear how you and your organization can get involved in this movement.
Jocelyn: Jhaymee Tynan is an Enterprise AVP in Integration for Atrium. She is also the Founder of 100x2030, a career initiative committed to sponsoring 100 women of color by 2030. In addition, Jhaymee hosts a video series, Amplify Your Career where she speaks about how women of color can amplify their careers through sponsorship.
Jhaymee, you started this initiative 100x2030 this year, in February, tell us what you have accomplished so far with this initiative.
Jhaymee: The catalyst was an article I wrote for Forbes titled Why I’m Sponsoring 100 Women of Color in Healthcare and that got a lot of traction and attention from people. People who have been sponsored, who have served as sponsors, and even individuals who had never even heard of what sponsorship is and said to themselves, “I want to learn more about this.”
So I launched it in February and since then I have been able to sponsor roughly 31 women by nominating them for public speaking engagements, board seats, and also trying to extend my networks to them through warm introductions.
It’s been a really heartwarming experience. I love being able to give back. And most importantly I love being able to see women thriving because they are being sponsored. I have gotten some exposure but I have really been able to accelerate my goal which was 100 women in 10 years and in year one I have hit 30+% of my goal, so that has been really exciting. And I am getting interest from individuals who want to participate as well as organizations who have said we want to be at the forefront of being able to increase representation and we feel that sponsorship is a great way to do that. So I have had an interest from organizations and companies who’ve wanted to make their own commitments of sponsorship.
Jocelyn: You have sponsored 31 women of color so far this year, and taken 46 sponsorship actions. That’s really amazing. What are 1 or 2 stories you can tell us that you are particularly proud of?
Jhaymee: A couple come to mind. I have several mentees that I support in a mentorship capacity and also in a sponsorship capacity.
There was one woman in my network who had always wanted to be on a national board, she really wanted to be able to give back starting on a nonprofit board and evolving to a for profit board. She noticed that I was on the Board of Women in Healthcare and she wanted to talk to me about my experience. We had an open nomination process recently where she wanted me to nominate her for that opportunity and I said absolutely, you would be fantastic for the board. I think she found out last week that she was selected for the board. So again using your networks to nominate someone and saying hey, I really think she would be a good addition to the board that is one example.
The other example is I had a mentee of mine who had believed that she was not being recognized and rewarded for the work and knowledge that she has, and felt that she was at a level of her career that wasn’t appropriate for what she brings to the table. So she was the type of person who was a bit shy in advocating for herself or applying for certain jobs. We worked over a period of about six months where I used my power and influence to nominate her for opportunities and she went from an individual contributor role to a Director level, people management role at one of the largest healthcare systems in the country in a matter of six months. What was fantastic about that opportunity is there was a report last year from McKinsey called Women in the Workplace that talked about this issue of the broken rung where getting to the first manager level role is really where there is a huge inequity for women. So she was able to go from that individual contributor role to a national manager in a matter of six months just through sponsorship and advocacy.
Jocelyn: That’s awesome.
Your initiative and your sponsorship focuses on Healthcare, but 100x2030 has inspired people in other industries to sponsor women of color. If someone wants to get involved, how can they support the initiative?
Jhaymee: Yes, absolutely wonderful. There are really two avenues if you want to get involved. If you are an individual person who says, “I would love to make this commitment for myself and sponsor women of color.” you can absolutely do so and I would love to connect with you.
I have a website jhaymeetynan.com and you can reach out to me there and make your commitment of sponsorship, I always say, no commitment is too big or small, perhaps you want to start with 5 women in 10 years or you want to make a splurge and do more than 100 women. We would connect on a quarterly basis and I would check in to see how many women you have sponsored and what the outcome was, and then we’re going to track that over time so we can tell what I call ‘stories of sponsorship’ that are really making an impact in the lives and careers of women of color.
If you’re an organization who wants to get involved and you are listening to this or reading this blog post and say “you know what I think our organization is ready to make a public commitment of sponsorship of women of color.” You would actually do the same thing, reach out to me on my website and we would talk about what that commitment is going to look like. I think, this is my bias, most organizations could probably do way more than 100 women in the next 10 years. So we would talk about what that commitment looks like and then we would again track your progress and check in with you on those stories.
Ultimately what we want to do across both individuals and organizations is impact 10,000+ women of color across the globe.
And I can’t do it alone because I am only one person, so I would love others to join me and make their commitment to holding others accountable. If you are an individual or an organization reach out to me on my website and we will get started.
Jocelyn: Tell me more about how employers can get involved, specifically what kind of programs can they set up and what do they need to be thinking about to be successful?
Jhaymee: Absolutely, I think many organizations have realized that mentorship programs serve a great purpose to engage employees in their career development and give them a sense of ownership of their careers because you as a mentee are really serving up what you want to learn and you are working with a mentor to close career development gaps. I see a lot of organizations that are moving more towards targeted sponsorship programs as part of this work. I think it is important for organizations to understand what their overarching goals are when it comes to DE&I, so what do you ultimately want to achieve? Is it more women of color or people of color in leadership positions, more people of color in people management positions. I think you need to be very solid in what your endgame or end goal is.
Sponsorship programs are nothing new, many organizations have employed them. There are a few things I would offer if you are thinking about starting a sponsorship program. I think the most successful sponsorship programs start by having sponsors who want to participate, they can’t feel that this is forced upon them. They can’t feel that this is a chore. They have to want to be sponsors.
In one of my Amplify Your Career videos I talk about the 5 Cs of a great sponsor (Amplify Your Career—Episode 2). You need to have sponsors who really embody those 5 Cs:
Courageous
Committed
Connected
Candid
Capital
You really want to start with a good foundation of sponsors who want to participate.
The other thing is you have to be very realistic about your goals, if you are thinking you are going to be able to promote every single woman that participates in a sponsorship program you may want to temper and recalibrate that a bit. Perhaps you have the infrastructure to do that, or you need to work towards that. But you need to be very clear with the proteges in the program of what their expectations should be when they finish.
If you are thinking of starting a sponsorship program:
Get great sponsors
Set expectations
Utilize metrics
Make sure you are tracking the participation, what that looks like, what did the sponsors do, and holding them accountable.
Jocelyn: That’s great, now for smaller companies with just 50 employees, is this something a company of that size can do?
Jhaymee: Absolutely, I think sponsorship should be embedded in your culture and how people see themselves and that you are committed to helping them grow. Regardless of the size of your organization there are many things you can do from a sponsorship standpoint internally and also externally. Internally it is focused on advancement for a lot of people, but outside an organization it’s focused on getting people visibility, giving people opportunities to speak at National Conferences, representing your organization very positively but also giving them a platform is another sponsorship action that organizations can and should take. So both internal and external and it doesn’t matter what size organization you have.
Organizations talk about issues of advancement they always talk about the issue of the pipeline, we don’t have a pipeline of women, or even more so, we don’t have a pipeline of women of color who are ready for that next step, and I would like to challenge organizations to think and take more ownership of that pipeline and turn it on its head. I think when you get to a certain level in your career, you forget that you were sponsored to get where you got. And I believe executives need to feel that it is a fundamental responsibility for them to sponsor others and not just because the organization is saying it’s the right thing to do, doing it because that’s how you got advanced in your career and you want to pay it forward.
I always say it’s not a pipeline issue, it’s a sponsorship issue, because the accountability for advancement and increasing representation—obviously your organization has a role to play, but I think you as an individual can do a lot through sponsorship.
Jocelyn: Jhaymee thank you so much, this information is so valuable. If you feel inspired to sponsor women of color, reach out to Jhaymee to learn more. Read part one of this interview here.
