As our first initiative, the Women’s Leadership Alliance chose to pilot a program where we deliver comprehensive training and ongoing support to a group of Raymond James women advisors who expressed interest in becoming mentors or mentees. Our program is called “The WLA Leadership Initiative Pilot Program.” The program is 90 days long and 12 Raymond James women advisors from both the independent and employee channels volunteered to participate.
We believe we can deliver a unique, effective and impactful mentor program by focusing in on fully preparing our mentors through timely information, role playing, brainstorming and interactive feedback sessions. We retained seasoned facilitator Connie Deianni from Corepoint HQ to deliver the four hour initial training session, which took place immediately preceding this year’s Raymond James Women’s Symposium. Throughout the pilot program, Connie will continue to facilitate monthly feedback sessions where mentors can share best practices, discuss challenges, and explore new ideas and strategies. Our mentors are energized and excited about participating in our pilot and making a real impact on their mentees’ careers as advisors.
Word spread quickly amongst Symposium attendees, and by the end of the week, several managers had contacted us inquiring about our pilot program and recommending advisors in their branches as mentee candidates.
WLA board members are working diligently with Division Managers, the Advisor Mastery Program (Raymond James’ new advisor training program) and other individuals to grow the mentee and mentor candidate pools. We look forward to being able to report much success at the end of this pilot.