The Mentorship 360° launched in Istanbul today to provide a 360° mentorship and outreach approach enhancing women’s professional and workplace empowerment at all career levels.

The Gender and Women’s Studies Center of Kadir Has University, in partnership with APCO Worldwide Istanbul and MANNAGENN, are pleased to announce the launch of Mentorship 360°, the Turkish women’s professionalization and workplace change initiative, on 27 September 2016 with the United States Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. Hosting the launch was Ms. Holly Holzer Bass, a United States diplomat and wife of the U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Mr. John Bass, along with the U.S. Consul General-Designate Ms. Jennifer Davis. Joining the event were leading members from Turkey’s largest domestic as well as foreign firms, women entrepreneurs, gender-invested foundations and civil society organizations, and leading Turkish women students.

In their remarks regarding Mentorship 360°, Ms. Holzer Bass and Ms. Davis emphasized the important role mentorship played in their own professional and personal lives. The mentorship they described was not of a one-to-one nature but instead dynamic and open. As explained by Mentorship 360° Lead, Dr. Catherine Long of Kadir Has University, Mentorship 360° follows these examples and that of other women whom have effected positive change in their respective workplaces and markets. As she stated, Mentorship 360° is based on the realization that even women whom have made notable progress in their careers still need and want mentorship; that young women students and professionals may see unique opportunities or potential in the Turkish workplace or market; and that Turkish women – individually and collectively – not only want change but are bringing change that must be recognized and leveraged. Mentorship 360° pursues change premised on honest, value-add exchanges between leading Turkish women from all stages of their professional lives and all sectors driving the Turkish economy. Mentorship 360° works to bring such change by emphasizing a 360 degree perspective in its member platform as well as its multi-pronged public outreach portfolio.

Mentorship 360° roundtables, open events, public educational materials, and other program contributions are supported thanks to its founding academic and private sector partners, diplomatic missions including the United States, and its new private and non-governmental partners committing everything from participating professional members to support for workplace initiatives. The Mentorship 360° project was submitted to the British Embassy in Ankara for support and in principal it has been approved for funding by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s Bilateral Programme Fund.

Related documents:

Overview of the program.
Program introduction.
Official press release.