When women succeed, we all win. That’s the premise of Breaking Through, a great new book by Martine Liautaud, one of France's pioneering female investment banking executives and entrepreneurs. Women are: the majority of the world's consumers, the engines of entrepreneurial growth, roughly half of the world's workforce, known to be risk takers and innovators, and the developers of new approaches to business. Still, they do not occupy enough of the top jobs in business, and they are underrepresented among the most successful entrepreneurs. Breaking Through is the complete guidebook to mentoring women for ceiling-smashing success.
“Women do not lack courage in life, and through our many roles in society we have acquired an inherent sense of adaptation. As a result, the modern world is made for us: don’t be afraid to create businesses and to fail in these businesses. You will bounce back because you have that talent in you if you trust yourself and you are not alone. Many networks can help you.”
Whether you are looking for a company with an outstanding mentorship program or you want to create one in your organization, this brilliantly illuminating collection of voices from women at the top of their fields in business, non-profit, and academia has the dependable guidance you need. This widely relevant resource presents concise and focused wisdom from forerunning experts across the globe on the latest thinking, practical solutions, and areas of vast opportunity for business-minded women. Nowhere else can you find such an extensive resource of hard-won advice for dialing in the right synergy between your talent development and business model to achieve unprecedented levels of business success. Hear first-hand about the programs at companies leading the way in mentorship and how they are reaching business-wide goals by engineering tremendous rewards for everyone involved.
Written by the founder of the Women Business Mentoring Initiative and the Women Initiative Foundation, this authoritative resource offers an inspiring framework to mentorship that clarifies the complexities and provides the deep knowledge and experiential guidance you need to:
• Recognize and design mentorship programs that overcome specific, common obstacles to women accomplishing more
• Plan for the technical and personal realities of a mentoring program through revealing and memorable interviews with both mentors and mentees
• Discuss the specialized mentoring, education, and networking women entrepreneurs need to maximize their talents along their unique career paths
Breaking Through explores the mentoring relationship, and unravels its effects on women, businesses, society, and the economy. In 2010, author Martine Liautaud founded the Women Business Mentoring Initiative (WBMI) to support women entrepreneurs with the targeted advice and personalized guidance that can only come from a mentor. In late 2015, she set up the Women Initiative Foundation to broaden her action in favor of women in the business world. This book encapsulates the WBMI mission and other similar experiences inside international and US corporations, showing how mentoring and sponsorship can take many forms—and how each form benefits women in business. Through evidence-based narratives, you'll learn what real women have gained from both sides of the dynamic, and why they credit mentoring with the strength of their business success. These stories show how mentoring yields increased efficiency, improved financials, more effective management, increased innovation, a broader talent pool, and increased revenues, and how helping women succeed in business leads to increased philanthropy and improved community sustainability.
About the author
Martine Liautaud is an investment banker, entrepreneur, and investor, specializing in mergers and acquisitions and financial engineering. She began her career at Banque Indosuez, and then became a founding partner of Financière Indosuez, which was set up in 1988. At Financière Indosuez, Martine managed the privatization department, and played a key role with Crédit Agricole Bank, and the privatization of TF1, the most important TV channel in France and the most-viewed TV station in Europe. In 1990, Martine set up her independent investment consultancy firm, Liautaud & Cie, which specializes in mergers and acquisitions, financial engineering, and consultancy to major French and European companies. As an industrial entrepreneur, Martine has taken majority stakes, or large minority stakes, in several companies, as well as taking the position of Vice-Chair in several ”success story” companies, such as Meccano, a world leader in metal construction systems, and in the publishing sector, Groupe La Martinière. Martine is an alumna of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and together with several other Stanford alumni in 2010, founded the Women Business Mentoring Initiative (WBMI) a voluntary mentoring program aimed at women entrepreneurs whose businesses are at least three years old. Under Martine’s leadership, this program has attracted support through partners that include BNP Paribas and the global energy leader, Engie, and has a strong link with the Stanford Business School. In 2016, she set up Women's Initiative Foundation that supports women's successes. Martine Liautaud is a board member of the multicultural European food company, Savencia, is on the board of the Entrepreneurial Committee of MEDEF, and is a board member of the Centrale-Supelec engineering school in France. She was also a board member of the American Chamber of Commerce in France from 2010 to 2015. Martine Liautaud has been awarded the Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur. She is married with two children.
Visit Website: women-business-mentoring-initiative.com
Why LoA loves it….
Breaking Through is a powerful call to action for women entrepreneurs to take charge of the training, networking, and mentoring of young talent so they can transcend to the highest levels. This book shows how mentoring women entrepreneurs and women managers provides the key that opens the door to the new economy. It explains why mentoring is key to women's economic advancement and examines how it yields tangible benefits beyond the workplace. Breaking Through makes a compelling case for the effectiveness of mentoring using real women's stories of success to both inspire and motivate. --- Melanie Hawken, founder and CEO of Lionesses of Africa