Accelerating women's careers

Why Sponsorship Is Our Key for the Next Generation of Female Leaders | Best Practice by Bain & Company

Formal sponsorship is an important tool to ensure the current and future top management pipeline at Bain & Company – as well as for retaining female leaders. Read on for inspiration on why Bain consciously provides a sponsor for all their female leaders.

This Best Practice was first published in the Gender Intelligence Report 2022.

Building the next generation of female leaders

As part of our overall mission to be the best place for talent globally, Bain & Company has made significant investments in the world’s most talented female business leaders, helping each one thrive professionally and personally in their careers (see Best Practice 2020). As women at Bain & Company develop and aspire to senior positions, the firm supports their professional ambitions and thriving journey through mentorship and sponsorship.

We’re proud to say that we’ve doubled the number of women on our leadership team worldwide in the past four years by focusing on gender diversity at every level of the firm. The result: more than 30% of all leadership positions at Bain worldwide are now held by women. Our sponsorship program will be an important tool in the coming years, as it provides the network to build the next generation of (senior) female leaders in our firm.

• Janna Neophytou

  Senior Director

  Talent & Business Operations at Bain & Company

Mentor vs. sponsor: why providing both is key for (senior) women

While a mentor is a person who has knowledge & wisdom and shares it (e.g. via advice, support, feedback, “insider information” about advancing, contacts with influential people, etc.), a sponsor is a person who has power and uses it for her/his sponsorees (e.g. by providing high-profile opportunities, openly advocating for promotions, engaging in settings where sponsorees cannot engage for themselves, etc.). Of course, the roles of a mentor and a sponsor do not always have to be distinguished from each other in every single respect, they can also overlap. Mentoring often comes first, and when its potential has been realized, sponsorship has a solid platform on which to thrive.

“Over-mentored” and “under-sponsored”?

Both mentoring and sponsorship are crucial in a career. However, sponsorship is more effective when it comes to explicitly promoting career advancement for women. Research shows that women tend to be “over-mentored” and “under-sponsored”. It is important to note that mentoring increases the likelihood of promotion for men, but has no – or decidedly less – impact on women’s promotions. One reason for this is that women’s mentors are often less senior than men’s and do not have enough influence when it comes to advocating for their mentees. Therefore, unless consciously steered, female mentees have fewer meaningful interactions with high-level leaders than their male counterparts – and this gap widens as women advance.

Why conscious sponsorship is a must

Very often, companies rely on informal sponsoring. Some leaders may believe that the best sponsoring relationships form organically. But it is precisely to informal sponsorship relationships that women do not have access. Why? First of all, sponsors usually gravitate toward sponsorees of their own gender or similar backgrounds (similarity bias). Thus, men in power – who are currently still in the majority – are more likely to promote and advocate for other men when leadership opportunities arise. Second, women are more likely to ask for advice rather than asking someone straightforwardly to advocate for them.

Female leaders, then, explicitly need formal sponsorship. At Bain, we are committed to a formal sponsorship program to accelerate women’s career advancement.

Creating equal access to sponsoring opportunities

The sponsorship program is set up by a local leadership team. We match sponsor-sponsoree pairs based on sponsoree suggestions, professional affinity, and to some degree, office location. Sponsors and sponsorees are encouraged to commit on their engagement in specifics, e.g. on how often they connect, on which topics they connect, etc. Additionally, every three months we track the progress of the participants and collect feedback.

Success factor: the thriving plan

Sponsors help sponsorees gain new career perspectives and plan their career journey wisely. They empower sponsorees to create a personal “Thriving Plan”. This plan outlines long-term goals at Bain, opportunities to be considered, decisions to be made, and ideas on how to overcome obstacles along the way. The sponsors take an active role in helping implement this plan, leveraging their own skills, experience and personal network.

“Thriving Plan” Matrix at Bain & Company

Sponsoring rules: trust is key

Sponsorship accelerates progress in gender equality

Sponsoring is one of many important people initiatives at Bain. We are proud to be consistently ranked in the top four on Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work list. The feedback from sponsorees and sponsors is also very positive. The bold words in the quotes clearly express that sponsorship accelerates career advancement. It gets things moving, which is crucial to pushing gender equality in the right direction at a faster pace.

For further information and to exchange on this topic, please contact Janna Neophytou, Senior Director Talent & Business Operations at Bain & Company Switzerland at janna.neophytou@bain.com.

Research: “A Lack of Sponsorship is Keeping Women from Advancing into Leadership“, Harvard Business Review, August 2019

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This Best Practice was first published in the Gender Intelligence Report 2022.

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