Mentorship

There are thousands of mentoring programs in this country, yet no one had directly challenged business leaders to individually mentor youth who lack a professional role model. We issued such a challenge and in 2021 that call was answered in a bold way through a groundbreaking program we envisioned and funded.

The Emerging Leaders Program

The Emerging Leaders Program (ELP) supports high school students in the South Bronx in attaining life-sustaining careers through early career exposure, development of in-demand professional skills and career mentorship.

In 2021, with ELP, we created a highly unique C-Suite mentorship program with JPMorgan leaders and employees acting as mentors, and other nonprofits (Opportunity Network and Here to Here) assisting in support and training. ELP students showing substantial leadership potential will be employed during the summer at JPMorgan and matched with a “pod” of senior C-Suite executives and 2-3 other company professionals of various levels, backgrounds and experience who will act as mentors. The involvement of the senior-most business leaders in a pod with more junior employees will spread the responsibilities of mentorship and serve as an example to other employees to become involved and join a “pod,” thus greatly expanding the program; in essence building a mentor program from the top down.