When Liliana Goncalvez, Manager, PwC Guatemala, heard about the work Bpeace is doing in the Women Forward program, she jumped at the chance to mentor Salvadoran women business leaders. “The first meeting with my pair of Women Forward mentees was focused on what they wanted to fix about their leadership style. I felt that focusing on the negatives was a hard way to start the mentoring process. This program is for successful women who just need a little extra boost to succeed even more. “For the next meeting, I shifted the focus to why they were already so successful. I asked them to create a superhero avatar of themselves and explain why they were superwomen. The result was a fantastic shift from what needed fixing to all the wonderful traits they bring to the table.

“The Women Forward program delivers an explosion of benefits that go beyond the women we mentor; it impacts their families and colleagues. One mentee was micro-managing everything. After a few sessions, she was able to identify key employees who could take the lead on stalled projects because she now had the confidence to delegate. As a result, her team is thriving, working harder and happy to be helping the company succeed. The impact on the women’s confidence cannot be overstated.” “Another explosive value of the Women Forward program is the support network, which includes every woman who has completed the program. This is unique. Few of these women had access to a network of businesswomen prior to Women Forward. Now they can share what has made them successful and what they are struggling to overcome. This means they are not alone. “My experience as a Skillanthropist showed me that you don’t need to have all the answers right away because you are part of a team that is working together. And the value of your experiences comes out in the stories you tell that are leveraged into something bigger and better. It’s a great investment of time and heart that has benefited me greatly in my day-to-day life.”