Meet a Mentor is about building relationships between our mentees – young people looking to progress in the creative industries - and mentors who are professionals working across the creative sectors.
Potential employees benefit from the guidance, skills-building activities and networks that Meet a Mentor helps to create.
Employers benefit from culturally and professionally switched on young people who are up-skilled in creative problem solving, pitching, presenting techniques and digital skills training.
The mentoring commitment is just four evenings over four months. Evenings include a skills-oriented learning session and an inspirational TED-type talk.
Times are 6 - 8.30pm and we've been hosted in inspiring venues and agencies all over London from Google to the V&A to Somerset House to Airbnb and Karmarama to name a few.
The evenings are informal and are designed to be dynamic, enjoyable, nourishing and encouraging. Mentors often feedback that there is a lot of reciprocity from this process and they learn a lot about themselves and their own practise as well as being able to help by giving back a bit.
Who We Are
Fran Plowright is the Founder and Director of Meet a Mentor. Fran has a background in broadcast media production and has spent the last fifteen years working as a youth engagement producer, programme curator and creative learning consultant aimed at helping young people access opportunities, training, networks and jobs. She is committed to working with young people and discovering and nurturing new talent. Fran is also Senior Programme Manager at Create Jobs and continues to offer bespoke mentoring.
Kimberley Nyamhondera looks after the website design and manages the content and social media for Meet a Mentor. Kimberley is a former mentee on the programme and having graduated from the University of Nottingham in July 2017 is currently working as a Press Officer at Little, Brown Book Group.
To date we have worked with 230 mentors and mentees since we started in 2016 helping mentees secure work at organisations which include:
Channel 4, The BBC, Myrium, VCCP, Somethin' Else, Red Bull Media, Hachettes, British Summertime, Siobhan Davies Dance Company, Kings College London as well as going on into successful Freelance roles in the creative sector from Art and Photography to Music Editor, Filmmakers and Tech.
Past mentors have come from places including:
FCB Inferno, Google, D&AD, Channel 4, VCCP, BBC, Wallpaper*, Paul Smith, Persuasion PR, Decoded, Dazed Media, Nicholas Kirkwood, Snap London, The Wall Street Journal, Century Films, Supa Academy, Somethin’ Else, BBC Storyville, Wearedotdotdot, PTE Architects, One Stop Films, Splice Post, Time INC, Silverspace Pillows, Selfridges, ustwo, Made by Many, The Pool, Reading Room, Wired, Crabtree & Evelyn, Festival Republic, ITV, Working Eye, The Marketing Foundation, amongst others.
We've worked in collaboration with: