The new Buddy Programme starts in April! We take this kick-off as an opportunity to take a look at the past round - at the Buddy Programme 2022.
The Buddy Programme: Exchange among peers
After our consistently positive experience with the Fondsfrauen mentoring programme, we launched the Fondsfrauen Buddy programme last year. This programme was also new to us at the time, so we fund women were certainly just as excited as our first participants!
The mission of the Buddy Programme is to support young female professionals in their first leadership role or next career step. The programme offers young talents the opportunity to gain special access to our industry network.
The programme was led by the members of our Young Professional Steering Committee:
- Teresa Schulden, BlackRock
- Julia Pomer, ThomasLloyd Group
- Judith Galter, Bitpanda Pro
- Simin Heuser, Fondsfrauen
This is how the Buddy Programme went
During the first big kick-off meeting, the participants and our young professionals had the opportunity to get to know each other and introduce themselves. Afterwards, our buddies were divided into smaller groups to facilitate personal support and mutual exchange. Of course, we made sure that the group members matched in terms of their respective positions, personal topics and expectations.
In these groups, monthly meetings were arranged throughout the year. The participants of the programme were able to bring up various topics that were discussed and debated within the group in a protected space. For example, our buddies discussed pointing out boundaries in typical women's comments by men, wage increases, the compatibility of work and family, or even the Impostor Syndrome.
Our participants came from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, which unfortunately meant that personal meetings were not possible for all women. However, some of the buddies were able to arrange to meet in Frankfurt or got to know each other personally at our fund women networking events.
Our conclusion: The first run of our new buddy programme was a complete success for all participants. Both the buddies and our Young Professional Steering Committee members were able to gain valuable experience and benefit from mutual exchange. The feedback from the Buddies 2022 was also positive throughout. We were pleased to receive constructive suggestions and wishes from the participants. These include, for example, the discussion of focus topics, but also cross-group meetings.
We will strive to implement these suggestions in this year's programme and look forward to continuing to support emerging talent and work together on their careers in the coming year!
Simin Heuser is a freelancer and works for various investment fund companies and financial firms. She also writes as a freelance author on financial and insurance topics.