Next month, 21 women from around the globe will descend on Washington D.C. to kick off the Fortune/U.S. State Department Global Women’s Mentoring Partnership. In its 12th year, the program matches women business leaders from countries ranging from Argentina to Zimbabwe with some of the top female executives in the U.S. This year’s mentors hail from companies including Fidelity, Mastercard, IBM, Accenture, and Johnson & Johnson.
Here’s how it works: U.S. Embassies from around the world recommend emerging executives and entrepreneurs for the program. Fortune then selects and matches the nominees with members of our Most Powerful Women community who have volunteered to act as mentors. After an orientation in Washington, the mentees disperse to cities around the U.S. to spend the next two weeks with their mentors, who share best practices and skills. In some cases, the mentees closely shadow their mentors and even stay in their homes. The program ends with all of the mentees reconvening in New York City for a dinner and debriefing.
This year our mentee class includes an Indonesian woman whose company manufactures leather goods; an Egyptian who founded a survey research company; a lawyer and media personality from Ghana; and the co-founder of an online money transfer company from Poland.
Stay tuned over the next few weeks as we highlight some of the program’s past and present mentors and mentees.