Interview with Cynthia O'Neill, Founder, LeadHer Alliance, Canada

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Interview Highlights:

• How to create a mentee program
• How to create a white-label social impact
• How to measure the social impact of a new initiative
• What are you doing now that is exposing a social gap, and what can you do about it 
• How to engage sponsors 

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Interview with Cynthia O'Neill, Founder, LeadHer Alliance; Canada

With a career spanning 30 years, Cynthia has enjoyed much success working in London ON. In 2005, after 6 years as the President & CEO of Junior Achievement of London and District, she launched her own agency, High Altitude Thinking Inc. Since then, Cynthia has continued to provide organizations, both private sector and nonprofit, with effective business development and growth strategies. She has carved a reputation for her presence, leadership and record of results as a successful business and relationship builder. Cynthia and High Altitude Thinking Inc. also founded the Power of the Purse Women's Conference in 2007. After a successful decade of presenting Power of the Purse Women’s Conferences, Cynthia was seeking a new way to profile the accomplishments of women making an impact around the globe. To this end, she created IMPACTwithCynthiaO, an Youtube show featuring her in conversation with these remarkable women.

United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal(s) addressed:
#5. Gender Equality, #10. Reduced Inequalities

Social impact:
This spring Cynthia launched a new initiative called LeadHERalliance, which is a smart, curated and structured mentoring program to give our young female future leaders the kind of start that only women helping women can understand and galvanize. This global mentorship program matches young women Mentees, at the start of their careers, with seasoned women as their Mentors. The program creates a lifelong network of women with diverse experiences who are willing to share their knowledge to empower each other. “ I always say a woman alone has power; collectively we have an impact. Raising each other up and working together, women supporting women, is how we will change everything and ultimately find that elusive equality we seek.”

Website: https://www.cynthiao.com/leadheralliance

Interview with Cynthia O’Neill, Founder, LeadHerAlliance; Canada

Note: This interview is transcribed using AI software, which means, the transcription is not perfect. Watch the video or listen to the podcast to hear our guest’s wisdom in her own words. If you want to see more interviews like this, please comment below!

[00:00:00] Suzanne F. Stevens: Welcome to YouMewe Amplified. We are live today on LinkedIn, YouTube on the Suzanne F Stevens page and on Facebook on YouMeWe Movement. I am so excited to have our guests, Cynthia O’Neill today, founder of high altitude think Inc. Cynthia is a multi entrepreneur though. She is also the founder of impact with Cynthia.

Oh and power of the purse of women’s conferences. Most recently she launched lead her Alliance. This global mentorship program matches young women mentees at the start of their careers with seasoned women as their mentors. And we will be diving in to lead her Alliance today. And the what, why, and the how Cynthia makes her contribution count with her social impact. All the way from London, Ontario, Canada

Welcome Cynthia.

[00:00:57] Cynthia O’Neill: Hi. And how are you?

[00:00:58] Suzanne F. Stevens: I’m fabulous, it’s great to be connecting with an another trailblazer powerhouse woman. So thank you for joining us.

[00:01:05] Cynthia O’Neill: Thank you for having me. I’ve been looking forward to this so much, so I’m glad we’re finally here doing this.

[00:01:11] Suzanne F. Stevens: It’s always, interesting why people start what they do. So why did you start telling us what was the catalyst for you for starting Lead Her Alliance

[00:01:21] Cynthia O’Neill: Absolutely. And it’s a great question and great spot to start because for me, Suzanne, this has been incubating in my mind for a number of years now.

And it was really finding the right time where I would have capacity to put the effort into it that I needed to. And quite honestly, COVID was in fact the thing that, that gave me that opportunity. So while we look for kind of the bright spots, and, we all talk about how we pivoted and what we’ve had to do for me.

It really was an opportunity that I wasn’t expecting quite yet, but I grabbed it when I could. That was the why of the timing for me.

[00:02:00] Suzanne F. Stevens: Because this is a mentor program for young women. How important do you think having a mentor actually, is?

[00:02:10] Cynthia O’Neill: I personally and passionately believe that mentoring is that key element to success for all of us.

And I was a mentee for a number of years when I was starting my career. And then I became a mentor and I’ve had the privilege to mentor a number of young people over the years. I know for a fact that opportunity to be able to have the access to the person who’s, as you said, at the top seasoned and experienced, but having access to them, how do you gain that access?

How do you get the invitation to reach out whenever you need them? And those are important elements, I think, to really successfully mentoring. And it was the catalyst for why I felt creating lead her Alliance was needed. So for me, I felt we needed a formalized program, something that had a start and end date to it.

It had additional things around it and it was formalized so that each participant, mentor mentee were given the lane to get into, to be able to access each other. And they were given a schedule and reasons and questions to ask each other and just launched the conversation and the rest follows organically.

So that was the whole principle behind it. Let’s have an organized program with a start date with expected expectations and deliverables. Obviously have fun with it, but then also have something that is a network that continue. For years afterwards.

[00:03:38] Suzanne F. Stevens: Fabulous. Now, how do you select the mentee and mentor, to promote compatibility between the two?

[00:03:46] Cynthia O’Neill: Firstly, the props out to Sarah Hilton. So Sarah Hilton is our director of programs and she has come on board with me since the start of this program and she does the actual matches. So she is our matchmaker. And so we though use a program that matches personalities it matches goals. It’s an application form that the mentee fills out, but we get her discussing, what does she want to achieve from having a mentor? What would her ideal mentor be? What are the kinds of things that she is concerned about or looking for help with, if she knows, and of course that grows and changes as we go on, but at her initial intro to the program. And then on the other end, very much the same with the mentors. So we recruit the mentors , it started out with women that Sarah and I knew.

And then from there referrals from other women, and then, we’ve talked about it on LinkedIn and Facebook and on various platforms and women are reaching out to us and saying, Hey, this is what I’m looking for. Let me get involved. And again, though, the match is what does that mentor I have to bring to the table.

What’s her experience where she been, what are the kinds of things that she’s doing in her career, what she touched in the past, and let’s take those and then match those to the mentor who says that’s what she’s looking for it’s, it makes such sense to us that even if they don’t know they need each other, that would be a really good match because of something we see in them.

So it’s a real combination. The secret sauce there too. How come this is working so well as we have launched it? So that’s the process, though. It really is a very specific match based on, feedback and, an application process. And of course, conversation.

Sarah speaks to everybody on the phone, before she does the match.

[00:05:32] Suzanne F. Stevens: Such an important element. I’ve taken a really deep dive into diversity equity and inclusion. And most recently I’ve conducted a five-part panel discussion with five different communities. And several of those conversations, there was an emphasis of having a similar cultural background.

For example, if you’re going to have a mentor being a black mentor with a black mentee indigenous with indigenous Asian, with an Asian. So there’s a deep understanding of some of the challenges and opportunities that present themselves in a multicultural scenario. Have you taken consideration into culture and race in trying to establish mentor mentee relationships?

[00:06:14] Cynthia O’Neill: So firstly, that the goal of Lead Her Alliance is that it’s a global program and we’ve managed to succeed at that right out of the gate. So we have mentees currently are in the Ukraine. They’re in England, South Africa, India, Philippines. So we have a mentees who are in a global as well as across Canada and certainly quite a few of them here in Ontario as well.

And the same with our mentors. And so it depends again on what the mentee, is looking for. And we have a very diverse population. So we have, women of color. We have, women who are Aboriginal. We have women who are visible minorities who are represented. And in one case, as an example, we have a young woman who is a newcomer, She’s a Muslim woman. She is here and trying to break into our culture too. She’s done some schooling here and now she wants her job. So that was a request that she made. She had said, I would specifically like my mentor to have newcomer experience because I really feel that’s what I’m missing and I want so not to exclude anyone who wasn’t, but that was a specific request. And in our application process, there’s a dialogue about that for every one of our applicants to say, and it isn’t essential for all of them. And they’re not all saying, yes, I absolutely want someone who is the same race as me, or has the same ethnic background, but when they do then that’s what we fulfill for them.

 I think there’s an opportunity for everyone to be able to find what they want in that respect. But yeah, diversity is really important. Certainly, and we want them to be represented.

[00:07:49] Suzanne F. Stevens: What I do like about that is it’s the conversation to establish who do you want, and let’s really focus on that because, one of my challenges was, sometimes people want someone with a different culture, so that as you were mentioning, the Muslim woman may want somebody that actually does live here for different reasons to navigate the opportunities that exist.

So that’s wonderful that you’re doing that now. I do know there’s specific industries that you tend to focus on, to provide mentors and mentees. Do you want to give us a list of some of that is so when people are watching this, they too can say, Hey, you know what I have experience there.

And I think you are, you’re actually going after some really interesting industries that we often don’t see females dominate in, or we don’t dominate in anything that we do in some ways, but there’s not a lot of representation of women in love the industry. So pleases share.

[00:08:50] Cynthia O’Neill: Yeah, absolutely. So the idea of how the business end of this is set up is that there’s two umbrellas and one we’re calling the general cohort and the other is private label.

So under the general cohort, our applicants for mentees are widespread. So any young woman from there, anyone who’s identifying as female is welcome to apply. There’s a criteria of age. So she is in her last two years of post-secondary education through to her first five years of employment.

So some were in that is where she comes from. And that’s general cohort, and then we do the matching. So those teams run and it’s fun that there, that teams are named. So the first one that we launched was team “A” awesome, and then we have team “B” brave, and now we have team C courage and we’ll continue with that.

But on the other side, under this private label, we are specifically channeling, an area that we know. So for example, we have lead her trucking. So under leader Alliance, we have lead her trucking and we have this amazing relationship with women in trucking, which is a U.S based, but, U S and Canada membership of women who are in trucking.

And so their drivers who are their members, they’re the driving schools companies that employ their membership is broad based, but they have joined with us and we’ve created lead her trucking. And so as the name implies, our mentees are women who are actually long haul drivers, their in the beginning of their careers.

And they’re matched with seasoned mentors who are women who have been on the road for a number of years. A lot of them have come off the road and they own a fleet. Some have owned fleets and then have gone back to a single driving. The difference on that one, by the way, Suzanne, is that, we say young mentees, age, doesn’t apply in the women in trucking because often the new drivers are at their second or third career.

It’s a very lucrative career, but it’s also one that’s terribly underrepresented in women. And it’s got a great opportunity to make a great income. However, there’s a lot of, a lot of challenges with that industry and being on the road. So we have that and then we have lead her trades.

So right now we’re focusing on the construction trades. And so what we have happening right now with this first group that we’re putting through are women who are apprenticing in, everything from pipe fitting to joiners, to electricians, to plumbers, to iron workers. So those are the areas where reaching out to, and we’re getting our mentees from there.

And then same thing. We’re finding seasoned women who have experienced being on the construction site, who are mentoring with them. You can just imagine the unique challenges that happen for a woman on a construction site. When she’s probably one of very few women that is on that site with a lot of other men.

Just that opportunity to be formally matched up with and supported. Right now we’re working on, we haven’t got it launched yet, but we’re working with, women who are in the investment advisors, investment industry, because that is a lot of women who can make a very, substantial lucrative career out of the investment world. But again, it’s been male dominated. It still is. And so having a woman that they could reach out to and have as a mentor is a really important thing. We’re working on lead her agriculture right now. And so we have a group of women who are actually farming and that’s their careers in ag, and they want to have a Leader Ag so that we can get together and put young women who have chosen careers in farming and agriculture and match them up.

 These are really exciting things Suzanne. The list can go on, right? We have with parked it for right now, but we have leader arts. So it’s sitting there, we just haven’t gotten to the past at the moment to fill it, but it will be, and it got started with, some mentees who have graduated out of community college programs in performing arts, and they want to make a career in the arts.

How do you make a career in the arts? And how do you sustain yourself? How do you find that economically? You can do that. How do you weather the times that you’re not gigging or you don’t have a play you’re in or whatever. So again, matching them up with women who have succeeded and gone through the highs and lows of making entertainment, their careers.

We’re open to ideas, so anyone, as you said, anyone watching the program and can see a lane that we should be in, we’re very keen to, to hear from you.

[00:13:12] Suzanne F. Stevens: My bells are going off. Cause I, I love what you’re doing. And perhaps, maybe this is a bias of mine, but not the traditional areas of mentorship where I could really see a need. Right now you look at, agriculture, which I’m gonna introduce you to somebody cause I’m doing a keynote right now for the agriculture industry. And, just finishing it up about choosing to express your feminine power and what that looks like in agriculture. We’ve just had an election in Canada.

And one of the commitments to that platform from the liberals was to build more affordable housing. The big concern right now is there’s not enough people to do the building, not enough in construction in the trades. So this is a huge opportunity for women. You get good pay and having someone there to do it.

The arts, I love that you’re exploring that as well. I used to work in finance and you’re absolutely right. You can make a huge income and finance and there’s more and more women going into it. They are very successful when they go into finance because they have different connection with particularly women investing.

[00:14:28] Cynthia O’Neill: That’s right. And with that particular one, what we’re doing right now, we’re recruiting our mentors. And not only are they women who have their career in investments and finance, but also the allied professionals from law to accounting, to, any of the ones that you want to build a relationship with. And that made sense to us to bring that perspective into the mentoring as well. The other one is STEM.

So women in, tech women in any of the stems, that’s another huge piece. The opportunities are there and we’ve got our timelines and we’re just making it happen.

[00:15:01] Suzanne F. Stevens: How did you identify this social gap?

[00:15:05] Cynthia O’Neill: I think for me, what was happening was, as you mentioned in my introduction, so power of the purse women’s conference is a conference that I created, back in 2007, 2008, offered it for 10 years, we ended up doing 24 conferences over that 10 years in Ontario. Plus we went out to the east coast and Suzanne at the conference. It was a women’s conference. So we’d have two to 300 women in the room for the day it was all about recognizing that as women we make and we spend money. So our spending affects the economy, our spending, certainly affects decisions and we need to get together in a room and celebrate that and make sure that we high five ourselves and say, damn we’re doing this and recognize that let’s not lose that opportunity.

So that was, yeah, exactly. So that was the premise of the conference. And then I’d have speakers come in and speak and talk about their challenges . It was a great day, but it was a celebration day to. What I want it to always make sure in the last five years, over that 10 years, cause things change was that I was including younger women. We had our target audience and they were 35 to 60 and there, but that where’s that young woman? So I would reach out to community colleges and universities and offer seats and RBC was my lead sponsor. So they would offer a seat so we could fill them with young women. And it was great. And the day was amazing. I’d always have a host at each table who was, again, the seasoned woman who would get to meet them.

I’d introduce the young women from the stage, but at the end of the day, the conference was over. And honestly, so was most of those relationships. You’d meet women exchange business cards, but like I said, who in their early twenties, really is going to pick up the phone or email to someone that they just met who’s a CEO of a company and just say, hi, we met at power of the purse I’ve got a question to ask you. So while it sounds good in theory, it wasn’t in practice. So that for me was where I thought, you know what, there’s this gap. We’ve got all of this talent of women who could give back and reach back and move up and open doors for young women, but we’re not harnessing the talent.

We’re leaving it and we’re not doing what we should be doing. We all should be in service. I think woman to absolutely reach out and help a young women along. That was really the identified, I’ll obviously did a lot of reading and looked up what was happening in mentoring both nationally and internationally.

There’s a consistent story every time that when women work together, when women help each other, when women’s voices, amplify women’s voices so much more gets done. So what a better way than to create, not only this mentoring program, but the network that stays afterwards, which is a big component for me too. Once you’re in lead her Alliance, you’re also part of lead her network.

And you all have a lifelong access to all of these women as this program grows. And that that’s exciting to me to be able to do that.

[00:17:59] Suzanne F. Stevens: Sure, absolutely is. You described it from your experience that, there was a need, did you actually do a community, did you actually ask these young women to what they needed in order to grow in their businesses?

And it can you talk a bit about that?

[00:18:17] Cynthia O’Neill: Yeah, absolutely. So what I did was I created a focus group and it turned out that this group of women have stayed on as our development team, offering their ideas and their input. But I put together a group of young women and women who would be mentors and got them around the virtual table and talk to them about where are the gaps where you need from the eyes of a young woman, who’s just trying to get into, her career.

And then also from the experience of the rest of us, as we look back and what happened and especially because does, and it was happening during COVID. I was hearing around the round table was that these young women were saying, where do we connect? Like we have no opportunity to meet and connect and build our network there simply isn’t there were no events happening.

And that’s where we have always traditionally met, but even, so there wasn’t even like classes, if you’re in school, classes were virtual. So it wasn’t even that opportunity to really interact with your teachers or, if any of that or go to the events or see what’s happening in the community.

So there was a real, I would almost say a fear that I was hearing a real desperation of I’m not connecting and I need to, and I’m not sure how to do that. And so that certainly was around the table and then the topics. So in our program, we have it’s 10 months. There are 10 topics and then those topics are delivered by 10 hosts who are experts in their field.

Within those topics, we spent quite a bit of time getting feedback again from our focus groups as to what they really wanted to see in those topics. And, there’s, like leadership is a big one and, confidence and financial literacy and creation, not just the literacy, but the owning your own and your financial story.

And then how do you start to work on wealth creation. Philanthropy and giving back and community building? Certainly, speaking, how did public speaking. How to present yourself, self care and resiliency. Just, there’s a whole number of these topics that we do that are part of the 10, 10, 10.

That again came right from the mouths of the young women who were looking for it. These are the things they identified that they were missing out on. So that became the contact for our curriculum.

[00:20:38] Suzanne F. Stevens: Yeah. And it’s such an important piece, is asking what you want. So thrilled to see this transformation of us telling what you need. And in switching to let’s ask of the beneficiary or in your case, a mentor and mentees, what they need. How do you find your mentees now?

[00:20:58] Cynthia O’Neill: How do we go about them? So social media is certainly, we’re starting to really ramp up with that, referrals. Again, referrals is still a big piece of it because these young women who are now in our fourth, we’ve had like our four groups are all suggesting and identifying and reaching out to their contemporary is to say, Hey, this is great program. You should do it. The mentors themselves know, young women in their world whom they suggest you should do it. And then of course we are looking for and working with, some sponsors as well. So companies that are saying, yeah, financially, we’re going to get behind this.

And that supports our financial, sustainability on the program. For example, the women in trucking, they have this large organization, they have membership and they have their own social media that they have worked on. We have ours.

And so we’ve collaborated through that. We’ve been picked up by a lot of press release in the U.S. And been featured in some articles. And, we were on a serious FM radio station that is on trucking and women trucking. So there’s been lots of that. So again, it really is, social media platforms and word of mouth and the opportunity like this, to be able to do some live programming.

[00:22:12] Suzanne F. Stevens: So you had mentioned earlier that the pandemic actually gave you the opportunity to finally, one of the few good things about the pandemic, right? It’s getting those ideas out into the universe, which is fabulous, which means you’ve only been operating lead Alliance for two years or how long?

[00:22:32] Cynthia O’Neill: Not even quite so started it, in 20, like I said, you, the idea had been fermenting for quite some time, but, the beginning of 20, in 2019, I had taken a hiatus from doing a power of the purse. I’d hit conference number 24, want it to take a year off and then re-imagine it. And come back with the 25th one with some different things at it.

So during that time, I was really focusing on this young women’s portion of it. And I was in there building a mentorship piece. Now it didn’t look like lead her Alliance, but it was a mentorship piece. And so that was the launching board. And then when COVID hit in March, it just allowed me to ramp it up.

And so we’ve just really been launched within the last six months, as far as the actual programs. But, it’s a lot of weeks and months before that it doesn’t happen overnight, but getting there readily. And I would say, Suzanne, I have been absolutely amazed at how quickly this is scaled up because I really had a timeline. And, I guess I think we are all conservative in those timelines because we want to make sure that we do it and do it right and such, but it was like the response to it and the need and the ideas and the numbers of mentors we have signing up and the mentees who want to apply.

So we’ve really had to wrap up, faster than we had thought we were, but it’s a great problem to have because, we certainly are seeing that there’s a real need for it. So that’s a good problem to have.

[00:23:58] Suzanne F. Stevens: The reason I was asking that question. It’s the time is actually. What measures do you have in place to know if it’s successful?

Has, you’ve just started, so you may not actually, what’s gaining traction, so that’s one element of success, but what measures do you have in place and what does that success look like?

[00:24:21] Cynthia O’Neill: And so what we’ve done is we had measures in place in throughout indifferent, a different milestone.

Obviously the first was, are we going to be able to attract mentees? Can we actually find the younger women that we think are out there and are they interested in, are they willing to sign up? So that was certainly one of them. And that. Not been a problem. And then the same, make sense, the same goes with mentors, right?

Can we recruit mentors? Are we asking for something that women are not willing to give? Is it too time consuming? Is it, does it fit? Is it laid out in a way that it works for everyone? So again, we’ve done that. And then the other piece was, can we find corporate sponsorship? Can we find companies and individuals who want to financially get behind this and support it?

So again, that was a marker. And then throughout the program, how was it working? We’re looking at, do the matches stay, are they holding? Are we having trouble with a match that we’ve made that is just not the right match? And there we’ve built into that. There, it’s not always going to work, but we have communication is very, tight.

We make sure we speak to everyone and we’re on top of that. And we’ve had only like one situation so far and there were extenuating circumstances to why the young woman couldn’t continue. But so we have that. And then the other piece is the success at each of the 10 topics. So the host delivers her topic that month and then the mentor or mentee meet up and they talk about the topic they’ve just participated in.

And then of course they talk about other things too, but that was that program to give everybody what are you talking about? Here’s the topic. So of course, then we get feedback on those sessions and how well received they were. And where are they on point where the on topic, are they the kinds of things that you said you were looking for and what are you getting out of it?

So we have those measures all the way along that we’re tracking. The one thing of course we can’t track yet is that continued networking afterwards viable. And so we have leader network, we have the plan, there’ll be a, there is a directory you’re in the directory, you’re accessible, et cetera. We have engagement planned post that everything from continued learning to, sessions. Is the pickup on that and is it what they want still remains to be seen in that piece, but certainly the crux of the 10, 10, 10, so far very good. But we’re obviously ready to adjust if we had to as well .

[00:26:41] Suzanne F. Stevens: Great. Now you’ve just alluded to this, but I just want to make sure, what is the ultimate impact on the beneficiary of your initiative?

So with the mentee, the impact is, firstly building a network, that’s one piece of it. Is she able to start to, and build a network that she can call on? So have we given her the right steps? Have we opened the doors the right way? The other piece is have we increased her confidence? Does she feel better about what she’s doing?

We have a session on risk-taking in career choices and that’s a really important session. And so have we given her enough background or enough understanding? Have we, given her enough tools, does she feel good after what we’ve spent time with her in knowing that she’s got the ability to make choices on risks in her career?

Whether you stay with your career, you leave, you go for another job, all those things. So the. Impact for the beneficiary being the mentee is, do you feel equipped? Do you feel better equipped? Do you feel more confident? Do you feel empowered to make better choices or make new choices or make choices that you didn’t think you could?

But now you can you get up there and note, cause we do a whole piece on negotiating and you ask for the salary that you want and you don’t always have to take a back seat, et cetera, like all of that’s into it. So that would be the impact. Does she feel empowered in a way that she wasn’t at the beginning of it?

Through attracting mentors. Let’s move over there. Collaboration is such a big part of this. You mentioned the financing that you have different organizations helping with financing, and I believe you also charge the mentee.

[00:28:32] Cynthia O’Neill: There is a fee for the seat. However, our goal was that we wouldn’t have to charge the mentee.

She’s aware that there is a charge, but that someone is sponsoring her seat for her. So that is the ideal. We really want it to remove the financial barrier so that there wasn’t a reason why someone couldn’t, especially when we’re global, a lot of people have very different financial ability to do this, and yet they have great needs.

As I said, there is a fee for the seat, but so far we’ve managed to be able to have those seats sponsored. I’m a big believer in skin in the game. I think that everybody has to know that there is a cost to doing these things. And our young mentees are aware of that.

And I think they feel very privileged that we’ve been able to find someone to support them. But again, it’s a sliding scale. So if we couldn’t do that, then it’s a very nominal fee for them to be involved. Yeah. But so then the crux on that is that we’ve got obviously keep people supporting it, supporting a mentor or from a corporate piece to want to have an affiliation.

[00:29:35] Suzanne F. Stevens: Sponsors themselves, what do they want in return? Because I know, I have a foundation and, I sponsored for higher education is where I’ve put my investment and to create future women leaders. And in doing that, I want something back. For me, I want a report. How’s it going? I want you to do blogs.

I want insights so that I can educate other people what this person’s doing. So there’s a sense of connection. So is there anything that you do, so the sponsor feels that they’re connected in one way or another?

[00:30:10] Cynthia O’Neill: Actually, yes. And I think because in my career over the past, I’ve spent a lot of time in the nonprofit sector and fundraising and doing a lot of also corporate side sponsorship.

So representing and being the voice of the corporation, working with the nonprofit, what is that good balance? What is that relationship? So within that, we have engaged our sponsors when we have to date in the program. So one of our first sponsors to get on board was Robin tingly. And Robin has a company called glass sky.

She is from new Brunswick and this is a woman who is amazing and she has dedicated many years to making sure that she elevates women and finds opportunity. And she deals with diversity and equity and inclusion. And so for her, she was very keen to build a relationship with us, right from the ground floor, because this speaks to her, as she said, this is the action to all the things that mattered to her and making these opportunities.

But this is a real action, right? Where you literally are putting people together as these mentor mentee matches. And that was a real appeal to her. So Robin also is someone who I knew we want it to be one of the hosts and deliver a session because I’ve, I know what she does and I know how powerful she is.

We’ve engaged her to actually not only financially be a sponsor, but also give us her time to, to deliver a session which she has. And then she’s actually stepped up to do a second one because we saw a need for that. Robin has written a book and so she donates her copy of her book to all of the young women as they go through, which is super, and it’s a great workbook for them.

So it’s that kind of engagement. And so women in trucking, again, amazing women that are at the head of it are engaged. They’re on the calls because we do an orientation call. So the sponsors on the call, the sponsor speaks as well in the session. She’s there at the wrap-up. To really put a face to the sponsor name.

It’s not just XYZ company, but here they are. And also to let our mentor mentees know why did you get involved? Why did you sponsor, what were you looking for? What were your needs like just as you had spent, what were your needs to want to be a sponsor of a team of lead her Alliance? And that’s a learning, that’s a networking, that’s a whole other level, right?

For all of our participants to actually have the access to the sponsor and be able to ask her questions and about her company. So it’s really, the whole thing is it’s just working really well. And I, that’s definitely the platform and the model Suzanne that we are moving forward with.

And, we see it working very well.

[00:32:49] Suzanne F. Stevens: That’s a key collaboration experience. It just, with a sponsor because so many people look for sponsors. Is there any pieces of advice that you could provide on how to find a good sponsor to align with your mission and maybe how to treat them as well?

[00:33:06] Cynthia O’Neill: I think the key is that word aligned. So firstly, if you’re, anyone who’s watching this, so if you’re thinking of launching a program like we’re talking about, not necessarily mentorship, a program that, there’s a need in the community and you’ve got the answer for it.

And you are looking for financial support that way. It’s the alignment. So what really makes sense? Who is your target? And is there a real alignment to what you’re doing? What you’re delivering that would make them want to get involved? So for example, with our trades, it’s recruitment and retention and career progression, right?

We have a number of unions that are on board and they are sponsoring seats for their apprentices. And then they’re also helping us find the experienced trades women. So in that they have a real need, right? They need to recruit and they need to retain. Same as women in trucking that’s the first way we started our conversation with Elena and Debbie, from women in trucking was look, we see a need for recruitment and retention.

And they went, that’s exactly what we’re about recruitment and retention. So let’s do this, and same with, like I said, with Robin, she is someone who wants to propel women forward and we were able to say, Hey, we’ve got an actual program, that’s going to do it. It’s a, it’s an experiential opportunity.

So that aligned with her. Our investment one, that makes sense. And again, it’s based on recruitment and retention. So some of the fund companies are interested in coming on board. So that’s the key, I think, the line.

You asked about how to treat them and that’s important to engage.

So I’ve always, it doesn’t matter what I’ve been involved with, or there was raising money for Ronald McDonald house or junior achievement or whatever I was doing over my career. It’s engage your sponsor. Make sure that they know and you update them and you let them know what’s happening. And not just all the good stuff either you can share with them, if there’s been some challenges, whatever, but engage them and get their feedback.

And, if they don’t want that kind of engagement, they’ll let you know. But majority of them want that kind of engagement in. It’s such a demanding world, right? For your dollars, your sponsor dollars or your marketing dollars. So it’s competitive.

[00:35:11] Suzanne F. Stevens: I’m getting excited again.

This is the third conversation I’ve had in regards to Lead Her Alliance and that I’ve had. And the more I think about bigger, the opportunity I see, because, and you see it, you’re there, but I’m just, I’m, raising my hands because collaborating with the organizations is such an important piece.

If you can take some of the mentorship off their plate, and you’re almost like an external HR sort of thing. Which ironically, so am I, but for social impact in a different way than you are. Quite complimentative that way. But there’s so many organizations that we know we need to mentor them with diversity, equity, inclusion, being such a huge topic.

Finally, that mentorship is such an important part. And that if in six months you’ve moved this and if you can continue moving that, hell, I’ll be working for you soon.

[00:36:09] Cynthia O’Neill: Perfect. And I’m not letting you get away anyway. It’s interesting when you said that because the other piece to our plan, as I said, these umbrellas and the private label, the other one is to be private label, a mentorship program for a company.

I just am in conversation right now with, an association and they’re in a particular industry. And, they know that they want to do mentorships, but rather than them have someone in house who they assign this mentorship program to we come in and we’ve said, look, we’ve got it right. We’ve got the program.

We have the 10 months, 10 topics, 10 hosts. You are looking for a mentorship program. So we’ll recruit like you give us the names in your inside, who you want. So you’re, working on developing talent in young managers or whatever. So you give us who you want for the mentees and you give us the names of who you feel might be, the mentors will do the work.

We’ll do the reach out. We’ll do the matching. We’ll do it. We’ll run the program through for the 10 months. And so that is part of it. Or I said, that’s the one company we’re in. And we have just started the conversation with another one. They want their employees, their young employees to be mentored with people outside of their company.

They have a reason for that. So we’re very, pliable, I guess we’re responsive. We can change, but that’s the idea that I’m having these conversations with these companies saying, look, you’ve got a mandate to do this. You have a need, you see it, you want diversity, you want inclusion, you want equity.

These are topics that we’re involved in. We can do this for you. We’ll come in and actually run the program and make it, and co-branded with them. So XYZ company and us, and then give them an opportunity out of those 10 topics to also bring one of their industry experts in to deliver a topic. So there’s lots of, lots and lots of conversation around that, but I think make sense.

[00:38:03] Suzanne F. Stevens: So there’s a few questions I have for you that I’m going to try to make them really fast before I get to our rapid fire, but I just want to make sure, this part is clear to listeners of, this podcast is this is a for-profit initiative.

[00:38:20] Cynthia O’Neill: My company high altitude thinking is a for-profit company.

However much like power of the purse. I created a separate project that, which was power of the purse, which was not a profit center. I didn’t make a profit on the conferences I had to cover my expenses. I couldn’t go upside down on them. If there was money left over on some and not on others, it just got reinvested back in to the conference and, or it got reinvested into, we used to work with the charity each time and I would help launch some projects with them this very similarly.

So while it is under, it’s a division of my for-profit High Altitude thinking it isn’t designed at this point to be a for-profit centered. It is about a social enterprise, a passion enterprise. It’s so it is about launching this and growing it, it isn’t set up to be the money-making, product. If it could turn into that would be lovely.

But I think it’ll go the other way. I think we’ll end up applying and to make it into a, a nonprofit, as it grows, but, I’ve got some timelines I wanted to get through first to see obviously. I also have, Suzanne really quickly, but I’ve put together a lead her board. So a board of women I’m reaching out to and discussing with particular women who I know have the resources and the means and the interest and the passion.

And they’re at a point in their lives where stepping up and putting some dollars behind seeding, this growth is right what they’re looking for. So I’m talking with and have a number of those women that have stepped up and they’re on board and we’re going to do something with them before the end of the year.

So that’s how financially we’re making it work. Of course the revenue piece is that we’re charging the sponsors and the partners in that, for this right. So to cover expenses. Cause we do have a staff person and we do have some expenses.

[00:40:07] Suzanne F. Stevens: That becomes really important to that is, you do have a business that is income generating, and this is just a branch of that.

It’s under the same business. You’re a for-profit business, but this is something you’re doing. You’re just trying to break even on it. You don’t want it to be a cost.

[00:40:24] Cynthia O’Neill: I’m not in a position to make

[00:40:26] Suzanne F. Stevens: it a cost.

And I mentioned that too, because often, people trying to figure out, okay, how do I do this?

[00:40:32] Cynthia O’Neill: How do I monetize it? Or how do I,

[00:40:34] Suzanne F. Stevens: because you have to sustain it. And in sustaining now the project itself doesn’t need to be sustainable, but something else has to be sustainable in order for that project to continue. Or so it’s like taking your money from here from Peter, bringing it to Paul or this case from Cynthia to Susan, whatever the case may be.

That becomes really important. If you could give me two pieces of advice that you may have for people who want to start to have a social impact, what advice would you give them?

[00:41:06] Cynthia O’Neill: I think if we just stay on the financial lane for a moment, I’m in a good position where I have the ability to do this.

And so I’ve taken advantage of that financially, where I am in my life. I think though that it’s important to recognize that there are startup costs in this just like it was a for profit business at startups. So you need to have the funding. And that’s a lesson that I’ve learned a hard way when I started my conference.

Cause I, of course I was just going to do one conference. So that’s why I’m making sure that I’ve got this kind of seed funding, but some revenue resources that I can call upon to pay the ongoing expenses while we grow this. And while we find those companies that are working with us and sponsors, et cetera, because otherwise you’ll end up in a deficit position so quickly.

So that’s first piece of advice. Take a look at what do you need. So what’s your cashflow projection. What do you need over the next 12 to 18 months? How are you going to fund that? And so you don’t get yourself bottled in or the, or that you find yourself not being able to take advantage of opportunity because you simply can’t cause there’s an expense right with everything. And I’m sorry, I forget what the other question was.

[00:42:14] Suzanne F. Stevens: If you had one or two pieces of advice, that’s one piece, do you have another

[00:42:17] Cynthia O’Neill: piece? The other piece is collaboration. So you know what? You’re not an island and you can’t do it all and you need to reach out and find like-minded people that are willing to buy into your idea, buy into your passion and want to help you through it.

And so don’t be afraid. And that’s something that’s on that my age I’ve had to re align and go, yeah. Okay. This is my idea, but I’m going to, I have to reach out and I’m going to reach out to that person and say, Hey, I could use your help. And this is what I need and can you get behind it? So I would say that collaboration is a huge piece.

So put your plan together. Like I did see your visual, who are the women around the table, or the man, or whomever around the table that you want to approach and get behind you. And don’t be afraid to tell them what you actually are looking for. If you need financial help or names or contacts or whatever.

But, so I think the two things,

[00:43:10] Suzanne F. Stevens: excellent. So let’s go to that. Do you have two pieces of advice, perhaps how to engage those mentors long-term? People get excited. I want to help. I want to help. And I know you may not even know this answer yet because it is only been six months, but from a planning standpoint, how are you proposing to engage those mentors long-term beyond the six months?

[00:43:35] Cynthia O’Neill: The mentors, you mean in the program who were using to match up with the mentees? Yeah, so really quickly, one of the big things that Sarah and I have learned is that the mentors are getting as much out of this as the mentees. They are, they’re loving it. They’re loving coming on board, watching all the sessions, they’re loving the interaction with their mentees.

And so that’s important that they’re getting something out of it and that we’re checking back with them and work, staying in communication with them and we’re giving them opportunities and we put them together for mentor meetups. So we’ll get all on zoom and the mentors are all there together, no mentees, so they can talk about it so that I think that’s important.

And then the recognition as well, while they’re not demanding the recognition, it’s about recognizing what they’re doing and making sure that we’re, like I said, the checking back and bringing them along. So they see the expansion, they see the interest, they see what people are saying. And a lot of effort goes into relationship building with those mentors.

So again, Suzanne, I can’t tell you how many are going to stay within the leader network at the end. I do know already that a number of them have said, sign me up again, that already. So we can only go with that anecdotal.

[00:44:46] Suzanne F. Stevens: I’ll be interested as we keep in touch. Cause no doubt you and I will. I have a feeling, although what we’re unique mentors is not necessarily my strong suit, but that being said, everyone has something to offer.

And I think that’s a really important piece. And I, I say that tongue almost tongue in cheek. Do you have any advice for organizations that actually want to have a mentor program within their organization and don’t want to outreach to you? Is there any, yeah. Do you have a couple of pieces there and then we’ll go into our quick fire questions,

[00:45:22] Cynthia O’Neill: I think it comes down to what you had said, earlier in one of your questions as to how did I know what the mentor mentees want.

So I would say to, Madam CEO, and you want a mentorship program in your company. So don’t assume what the mentee wants, ask them what they want and what they need within your company in a mentor. Because in the same thing with the mentor that you recruit, don’t assume, and don’t make them think, oh, I got to do it because it’s going to look good on my permanent record. I can’t say no because my manager or my boss, it’s about managing expectations, but ask them what they’re looking for and what they want and use that as your baseline for building the curriculum around. And then other than that contact us because we really have it. Okay. So that’s expensive than putting all your own internal time into it. So I’m grilling on you.

[00:46:22] Suzanne F. Stevens: All right, so let’s go into some rapid fire questions. Hold on. Here. So these are really short and sharp. Okay, Cynthia. So I have to be sharp.

[00:46:30] Cynthia O’Neill: Okay. Got it

[00:46:31] Suzanne F. Stevens: short and sharp. And if you don’t have any answer for it, you can say pass, but give it a shot. What is one thing you wish you knew prior to engaging down the path of lead her Alliance?

[00:46:42] Cynthia O’Neill: I wish I knew how excited people were going to get about it, because I would have maybe built it bigger, sooner, or like my plan for it. I think I was a little too conservative in my growth projections.

[00:46:57] Suzanne F. Stevens: The worst piece of advice you’ve ever received or just, it doesn’t have to be the worst, but bad piece of advice that you’ve ever had.

[00:47:06] Cynthia O’Neill: That piece of advice. I’ve received advice in the past about some of the ideas that I’ve had and the things I’ve done and I’ve received advice that said, don’t do it. It’ll take too much out of you. It’ll be it’ll drain you, leave you with nothing left to give. And I chose not to, and I’ve chosen not to listen to that advice.

And, you know what, I don’t have a regret anywhere, but I’ve had, I’ve heard that before.

[00:47:31] Suzanne F. Stevens: And, everyone’s experience is different. Thanks for that. That’s a really good re a reminder of one person’s depletions, another person’s energy. So best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

[00:47:43] Cynthia O’Neill: That’s a piece of advice is what’s the worst they can say. And the worst they can say is no. And I attribute that to my dad, Patrick O’Neill and, and my dad had said that years and years ago to me. He had an agriculture farming business. He was a truck driver by the way, he was a transport driver and he also had a side hustle, which was our farm.

And we had a production in potatoes. And I used to drive a truck when I was 16 and go around and deliver eggs and potatoes to restaurants. And I was, I had to stop and go and knock on the door of those restaurants and say, Hey, here’s what I’m selling. Do you want to buy, can you imagine this at 16, there was doing that.

But dad had said, what’s the worst thing to say? No. And so it’s ingrained in me and it has stood me in such good stead throughout my career. You got to ask for money. You have to ask for help. You have to ask for volunteers, you have to ask for whatever, keep that in mind. What’s the worst thing they can.

No, that’s the worst that you can say. You’re okay.

[00:48:40] Suzanne F. Stevens: Which strengths do you rely on most to have the success you’ve achieved? We know one you’ve just mentioned it. I don’t take no for an answer.

[00:48:48] Cynthia O’Neill: Strength. So I lead by my gut and I believe when I see it and feel it, I know it.

And so I think that’s, an attribute or that’s a thing about me that, I’m empathetic. I, an empath, maybe not to the full definition, but I feel for people, I feel their pain. I understand. I see where there’s gaps. So it all comes into my gut that I can find a solution. So I don’t know what that, what category that all fits under Suzanne, but I know that’s a big one.

[00:49:19] Suzanne F. Stevens: You follow your intuition, which is very common for women and very common for women who have a social impact from interviews. Matter of fact, I’m including that as one of my key, feminine power characteristics is following her intuition. But knowing how to do that as well.

 Now, besides yours, which is young women starting a career, which beneficiary do you think needs the most investment of time research and money.

[00:49:47] Cynthia O’Neill: I believe it is, our Aboriginal population. Absolutely. And our Aboriginal youth.

[00:49:54] Suzanne F. Stevens: I know you have, five children

[00:49:59] Cynthia O’Neill: that we’re a blended family. My husband, Paul Pennebaker, and I are a blended family and we are blessed with five fabulous young people.

[00:50:06] Suzanne F. Stevens: Now I know none of them are 10 years old now, or however, if you had a daughter 10 years old today, knowing what you know today, what advice would you give to her?

[00:50:21] Cynthia O’Neill: So I don’t think I would categorize it as advice, but what would I do? I would choose my language around her very specifically. And I would speak to her about, her confidence and I speak to her about, you can do anything you want.

And by the way, I did do this with Natalie as well, but I would definitely say, and make sure that she focuses on she has body confidence and she has confidence and she sees that she can do what she attempts to. But I also wouldn’t put unrealistic expectations on her that say, you have to win at absolutely everything.

I’d want to make sure. I also gave her the skills to be resilient. What happens if you don’t win at that? What happens if that doesn’t work out the way you thought it would, let’s find ways to rebound. So I think resilience isn’t taught specifically young enough and it needs to, so I would say Suzanne, those would be the things that, that I would do among others.

[00:51:17] Suzanne F. Stevens: What advice do you wish you received?

[00:51:21] Cynthia O’Neill: So I think, I think it would be, balance, a bit like if someone had maybe taught me at an earlier much earlier age, how to balance everything.

Cause you know, I always had ideas in my head and I’ve always been involved in a lot of different things. And I think at times to the sacrifice of perhaps my own personal interests. And so if someone maybe had given me a bit more path and direction as to how to find that balance, I’m not going to say work-life balance.

I don’t believe there is such a thing, but just that personal balance or how to put maybe my needs in there a little more too. Like I’ll be really candid with you. It’s just between you and me and everyone else watching, but I don’t have a hobby. Okay. I don’t know how many people watching this actually have a hobby, but I don’t have a hobby.

Like I don’t knit. I don’t do a craft. I don’t take do photography. I don’t paint.. I don’t have a hobby. I guess my hobby is charity. My hobby is be getting involved in projects and fun, helping people raise money or whatever, but I don’t have a hobby. And I think that maybe if I could go back and someone had given me advice that I didn’t get it would have been get yourself a hobby too.

[00:52:34] Suzanne F. Stevens: Yeah, I appreciate that because, I have a hobby. I just don’t do my hobby. So I guess that’s gonna be the other thing too. It’s the same thing. So when you’re, when your life has focused on impact and contributing it, it’s and sustaining that it’s pretty all consuming. So finding your own time, I spin.

I meditate. Those are things that I have brought into my life re pandemic.

[00:53:01] Cynthia O’Neill: So was that latter? I know you’re the interviewer, but is that later that you’ve done that? Or was that something that you incorporated in your life?

[00:53:08] Suzanne F. Stevens: I’ve been incorporating my life for many years now, but with much more diligence, I spend every day now I’m like that.

Cause I bought a bike. I meditate, I go through phases, but more and more to connect with my feminine energy. I need to meditate. So it’s really important.

So who is the greatest female influence in your life?

[00:53:35] Cynthia O’Neill: Oh, there’s more than one, female influence in my life, I guess I would say a little bit in reverse, but my daughter I’m 33 now. And so for 33 years, She has influenced everything I’ve done.

[00:53:52] Suzanne F. Stevens: Oh, fabulous. And you are an advocate of a mentorship. Who is your mentor now? Not the name so much as was it a friend, a teacher, a business associate who was that?

[00:54:03] Cynthia O’Neill: First one outside of teachers, which I think teachers play that role.

I had a theater arts teacher who was definitely a mentor. So then outside of that, one of my first careers was I sold real estate when I was 21 years old. And I had a woman that was in our real estate office and they’ll was amazing. And she took me under her wing and she taught me everything I needed to know to succeed in that industry and to succeed with business people and to succeed, working for a very sexist male, boss and the stuff I learned, Val Campion, what’s her name and I owe her so much.

I would say she’d be the first one that I’d identify.

[00:54:40] Suzanne F. Stevens: And last question, before we wrap up is what three values do you live by?

[00:54:46] Cynthia O’Neill: Honesty? Honesty, integrity, and empathy. Okay,

[00:54:53] Suzanne F. Stevens: thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I’m going to come back to one more question for you as I wrap up here. Thank you everyone for joining us and you can subscribe to YouMeWe Amplified so you receive each new interview notification in your inbox. So if you don’t get us live, you can get access on an ongoing basis. We’ve just started going live. So for 10 years, we’ve, you’ve always only got us through the website. So by all means, you get information. I don’t bombard you it’s once every two weeks you’ll get a new information.

 Please share this interview by going to the share button on each of the guests have their own page. So you can comment on the interview as well on that page, and you’ll have their contact information there. In regards to the website, don’t worry. I don’t hand out your phone number, Cynthia, the podcast video and transcripts.

We’re back to providing transcripts as well. So if you know someone who has had a significant social impact in business education, civic, service, or advocacy, let us know, visit our guests tab on YouMewe amplify and submit their information and we’ll get our research team to look and contact them. If they’re a good fit.

Now, if you do want to grow your social impact. Please. I invite you to look at the YouMeWe community women leading social impact, visit us at youmewe.ca for this exclusive group of women, transforming organizations and communities through conscious leadership and social impact.

Cynthia, my last question does go back to you. Do you have any words of wisdom for our audience regarding making a conscious contribution and social impact to society?

[00:56:33] Cynthia O’Neill: Look outward, see the gap, see the need, and don’t be afraid to come up with a way to fill it. And you may not think you’ve got the capacity if you’re just one person, but yes you can.

And if you see that you start that conversation, you start reaching out and I think you’ll be very surprised and there’s so many other women who make social impact, I think would agree with me.. You Suzanne, who does, but it’s identify that need and come up with an idea and don’t be afraid, just get it out there, throw it out and see what happens with it.

But that’s the only way we solve all of the small pieces that become big pieces is that we’re not afraid to step up and, and make a change.

[00:57:14] Suzanne F. Stevens: Excellent. Thank you, Cynthia, stay on the line with me, Cynthia, as we wrap up here and thank you so much for your contribution counts and the incredible work you’re doing and coming in at the beginning is so exciting because I know in a couple of years, time, we will have another interview.

And I have no doubt in my mind that your initiative of Lead herAlliance is going to boom. So thank you for your contribution to society. Thank you for your time and energy and your passion and everyone else

until next time, make your contribution count for YouMewe.