Barclays Bank / SGLBA LGBTI mentoring program kicks off round two

THE team at Sydney Gay and Lesbian Business Association (SGLBA) has recently completed its first Business Mentoring Program in association with Barclays Bank, with the objective of providing a platform to connect LGBTI professionals across Australia through 1-2-1 mentoring, and is now starting work with the second round of applicants.

Barclay’s LGBTI network – Spectrum – was instrumental in initiating this partnership with SGLBA.

Spectrum is committed to ensuring that Barclays is the employer of choice for LGBTI talent and they work to establish and maintain an open and inclusive environment at the firm where employees are respected and valued, provided with a community and a career development network to their members.

“It has been an amazing opportunity for SGLBA to be associated with an organisation of the caliber of Barclays and we greatly value their sponsorship of this initiative,” SGLBA president Mark Haines said.

“We believe there is great potential to harness untapped skills and knowledge from within the broader community and to share that among people who are keen to develop themselves.

“Barclays is committed to positively impacting the societies where we operate, and driving the diversity agenda is key part of this,” said Piero Bassu, head of Spectrum for Australia and New Zealand and director at Barclays.

This scheme is run by the SGLBA using their infrastructure and marketed to the professional LGBTI community via its PR platforms.

Feedback from the first intake provided great insight and opportunities to improve the program as well as participants citing that not only did they gain insights about how to improve their business; The real surprise was learning a lot about their own personality style and discovering breakthroughs about themselves.

More than half of the participant group said they had expectations of what they thought their outcomes would be, and it ended up going in directions they never anticipated, gaining insights and personal growth. Some enjoyed the experience so much that the least satisfying aspect of the program was it finishing.

Tim Daly, an SGLBA life member and owner of Tim Daly Media, participated in the program as a mentee and said he “would absolutely recommend the program to others, I didn’t want it to end.”

Find out more about the mentoring program visit http://bit.ly/1gXXvtT