This month, a group of young female entrepreneurs arrive in Britain as part of CBBC’s “Vision of Women” mentorship programme. Tingting Yang discusses the history of the project
In 2015, the GREAT Festival of Creativity was held in Shanghai. Thousands of business leaders and VIP guests attended the event, which showcased the best of British creativity. A short while afterwards, during a train journey to Hangzhou, Tingting Yang, Head of Regional Cities, was talking to the new Ambassador, Barbara Woodward, Britain’s first female ambassador to China.
“I was having a brainstorm with her and we were trying to work out what we should do with this wonderful network that we had been working with of thousands of top business leaders,” said Tingting, now China-Britain Business Council’s Director for East China. “The ambassador had mentioned that she wanted to focus on leadership in young women and she asked if I had seen the show The Apprentice.” Fast forward a few short months and Tingting had launched the first Vision of Women (VOW) mentorship programme.
VOW was established to find suitable mentors from big business for young female entrepreneurs. The Apprentice concept was instrumental in the project’s formation by putting the best young talent together with key business leaders. As well as learning some hard skills, the project was established to emphasise the importance of mentoring and empowerment.
Tingting also wanted to focus on second-tier cities rather than just candidates from the big metropolises. “Equality between women and men is more commonplace in major cities like Shanghai, but in second- and third-tier cities, there is still a deep-rooted tradition that business is not a woman’s place. In rural areas there are few expectations of women in business and female business people are often labelled negatively,” said Tingting.
The project was launched later in 2015 by the British Consul General Shanghai, implemented by the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce and saw five young, rising female entrepreneurs assigned to Chinese and British business leaders for a period of work experience and mentoring in the two countries. Leaders from the first year included Alibaba’s Jack Ma and Virgin’s Richard Branson, to name just two.
Participants come from all walks of life with an aim to improve the candidates’ level of business understanding, their leadership capabilities and to strengthen the personal and professional networks of the candidates. It is also hoped that it will build further alignment between businesses in the UK and China.
Each participant takes on specific projects and tasks, that they themselves create, in order to benefit women in their own networks
“We especially encourage women from different backgrounds to sign up,” said Tingting. “For example, Zhang Linlin was a new mother with a seven-month-old baby when she applied to become a VOWer back in 2015. She was studying for a PhD in Hong Kong whilst running her own scarf business that had a yearly turnover of more than 100 million RMB. She asked if she could bring her baby with her on the project as she wanted to continue breastfeeding,” Tingting continued. “I was very proud of her as we want to get the message out that being a mother does not contradict being a business leader.”
After a very successful start, VOW is now in its third year with the China-Britain Business Council taking the lead on the project. This year, over 60 participants have completed the programme with the support of seven partner companies. IHG, GKN, Hongkong Land, Atkins, TMF, Sanpower, and Shi Bisset & Associates have all held sessions for the participants on a wide variety of topics ranging from HR to brand management to immersive business leadership.
“The participating companies have been great,” said Tingting. “They have all gone out of their way to provide education, skills training and mentorships to these young entrepreneurs.”
The next stage of the programme will see seven candidates visit the UK for a weeklong programme in March. On the trip they will meet business leaders, politicians and academics in order to further their knowledge and build their expertise.
Tingting is quick to point out though that the participants are not just passive observers. “Each participant takes on specific projects and tasks, that they themselves create, in order to benefit women in their own networks,” she explained. “They will take these skills and pass them on so that one day they can become mentors too.”