Women in Digital: the Magic of Mentoring Roundtable

Zone
3 min readMar 10, 2021

Front-end developer Kayleigh Ridd introduces our roundtable, which takes a deep dive into the benefits of mentoring…

Having role models who represent you can make a huge difference to how teams feel about their own promotion opportunities. Which is why, in this week of International Women’s Day we are celebrating the amazing breadth of knowledge and experience within our team of women at Zone and highlighting our mentors and role models.

Jess Carver and Lucy Griffiths lead our mentoring programme at Zone, which includes incredible mentors at every stage of their career. Today, Jess, a senior UX designer, is hosting our Magic of Mentoring discussion focusing on the experiences of three Zoners in being both a mentor and mentee.

Joining Jess are Florence Buswell, senior content designer; Cheyenne Clark, apprentice software developer; and Rebecca Glassby, head of delivery and performance, discussing how to make mentoring a success for both parties.

Topics include:

  • What makes a great mentor
  • How to get the most out of the mentoring relationship
  • Advice that has stuck with them through their career

About the participants:

Jess Carver

Jess is a senior UX designer who is passionate about making products and services that matter most to people and business that use them. She’s been at Zone for four years working for clients including Electrolux, PRS, Genomics England and the UK Government.

Jess launched the Mentoring initiative within Zone last November with Lucy Griffiths, a senior delivery manager, to showcase the wide range of experience and skills within Zone and facilitate a way to start conversations and ask for mentorship. Since then, we have had nearly 50 mentors get involved and offer their experience to help other Zoners grow professionally and personally.

Rebecca Glassby

Rebecca is our head of delivery and performance — she looks after the people, processes and performance of projects across Zone. Rebecca has had a varied career across Zone and brings that experience into her mentoring. She guides people in everything from client relationships and commercials to leadership and confidence.

In this discussion, Rebecca explains the importance of creating a mentor relationship that is built on trust and open collaboration.

Cheyenne Clark

Cheyenne is an apprentice software developer and has with Zone for the past 18 months. From studying ICT at A-level, Cheyenne has tackled multiple programming languages in her time at Zone, working with both Genomics England and BMW — seeking out mentors to guide her along the way.

Cheyenne offers a lot of great advice about how to find a mentor and make the most of the relationship.

Florence Buswell

Florence is a senior content designer with more than 10 years of experience working for a range of clients, both in-house and within agencies. Florence shapes the end-to-end content of our digital products and services for clients. As a mentor, she helps others understand more about the impact content can have on strategy, as well as how to make content user-centric and agile.

Florence emphasises the key role communication plays in building a successful mentoring relationship.

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