Suzie Dyrbus: My experience of WoMentoring

Mentored by Helen Rowbotham as part of a programme aimed at increasing female leaders in para-sport, Suzie Dyrbus is finding her involvement is helping her to grab opportunities. 08 Mar 2015
Imagen
Zahra Nemati

Iranian archer Zahra Nemati celebrates winning gold at London 2012

ⒸGetty Images
By Suzie Dyrbus

This has all served to help me also in my current role in taking on a pro-active approach to ensure that all opportunities are fully utilised and see new potential areas that can be developed or explored further.

Sixteen mentors and mentees are currently participating in the Agitos Foundation’s WoMentoring programme, which aims to increase the number of women in key decision making roles within para-sport by sharing of expertise.

Suzie Dyrbus, who works to develop wheelchair tennis for the International Tennis Federation, is being mentored as part of the programme by Helen Rowbotham, who has worked in the sports and leisure industry for over 14 years.

Before entering the mentoring scheme I was slightly unsure as to what I was signing up to having never been involved in one before. I thought it was a unique opportunity to learn and gain guidance from women who have progressed up to leadership positions in sport, from different companies and organisations than those which we were already involved in and to increase my knowledge and understanding of some of the key skills and considerations that are needed and opportunities that exist.

It is always important in my opinion that women are in positions on merit as opposed to just for quotas, and are able to provide valuable information and knowledge to their position.

All mentors and mentees were brought together for an introductory weekend in Vienna, Austria, to explain the process and be assigned to our mentors. I was paired up with Helen Rowbotham who fortunately ended up being from not only a similar country, but also a similar area of London and I discovered had gone to the same University as me! This was then the start of the mentor/mentee relationship until January 2016.

During the weekend we had time to sit down and understand what we both actually undertake in our roles, what our experience has encompassed to date and discuss what my aims and goals were as a mentee before starting to think about putting together a personal development plan. This was the first time that I had put something like this down on paper, and it was very useful to discuss different ideas, how it could look and key factors to consider prior to undertaking the task. Following this weekend Helen and I have met up once approximately every two months to discuss how things are progressing.

I came into the process having experience in many different domains of the sports industry and it has been useful in order to discuss, understand further about the various possible directions and gain focus in where I would like to develop. This guidance led onto the opportunity to self-reflect on strengths and weakness, specific useful skill areas and how these could be enhanced, along with knowledge about networks, events, books or podcasts which could be useful. The latter two can always be utilised on a long work trip!

Helen and I subsequently set specific, measurable goals (after several drafts!) which can then be monitored and assessed as we continue to meet.

This has all served to help me also in my current role in taking on a pro-active approach to ensure that all opportunities are fully utilised and see new potential areas that can be developed or explored further.

It is often only by going through these processes that firstly you take the time to reflect on your own skill set and goals, and having questions that you maybe would not think of asking being asked that you are challenged in your own perspectives, see new opportunities and ways of working.

Find out more about the WoMentoring programme at the Agitos Foundation’s website.