Every journey starts somewhere. For Rita, Team Head at Julius Baer in Geneva, her first encounter with mentoring could have well been her last one too. An Australian native, Rita started her banking career in Sydney more than 25 years ago as an assistant equities research analyst before moving to Switzerland in 2005 to take on a role in private banking. “I discovered mentoring twelve years ago at my previous employer. They ran a women’s mentoring programme, and I was obliged to participate,” she recalls. “I admit that I was very unwilling at the time as I didn’t want to be in a mentoring programme simply because I am a woman.”
Making matters worse, a senior IT manager was allocated as her mentor. With herself in wealth management, she could hardly think of a less suitable match. “I remember my very first meeting with him,” she recounts, “I said, ‘Look, you’re very busy, I’m very busy. I’m sure we both don’t want to be here, so let’s just sign the paper and call it a day.’ And his response was, ‘I’m really impressed with your honesty. Do you know that this is the one ingredient that makes for a really good mentoring relationship?’ From there, we started discussing and, in the end, he became one of the best mentors I’ve had.”
On the fast track for learning
Today, Rita is leading a team of relationship managers for international clients in Julius Baer’s Iberian market and has become a passionate mentor herself. The willingness of senior employees like her to invest time and energy in supporting each other is a cornerstone of the bank’s successful mentoring programmes and a reflection of Julius Baer’s culture centred on its core values of Care, Passion, and Excellence. “A good mentoring relationship is a huge gift,” Rita emphasises. “It puts you on the fast track for learning because you can benefit so much from your mentor’s experience. No training or textbook can ever teach you what experience can. The downside is that learning from experience is an extremely long process – it takes years! So why not fast track and learn from someone else’s experience?”
For mentoring to work, however, she knows that one fundamental condition needs to be met. “You have to be completely honest. Don’t try to impress. In a mentoring relationship, the walls come down, the mask comes off, and you expose your vulnerabilities,” she says.
“It’s normal that, at work, we hide what is limiting us – our struggles and fears. And sometimes we don’t know ourselves what exactly is holding us back,” Rita explains. “In a mentoring relationship, such vulnerabilities can be safely exposed, unpacked, and worked on. In my view, it’s the only offering that exists today,” she says, “where you can open up in this way to someone in your work environment to learn and develop yourself.”
Helping to embrace change
Knowing the perspectives of both mentee and mentor, Jens from Julius Baer in Luxembourg doesn’t need any convincing about the merits of mentoring on his part. Benefiting from a mentor’s wealth of experience, he points out, is only the tip of the iceberg. “Mentoring helps you sharpen your personal and professional goals and expands your network in the organisation. You have the opportunity to build a deep and trusting relationship with someone from a different area in the organisation. Both as mentee and mentor, you are confronted with new challenges and look at them from different angles, which in turns broadens your view,” he says.
In his own career, mentoring has also greatly helped him embrace change. Starting as a banking apprentice almost thirty years ago, he built a career in the credit business and later in private banking, first as project manager, then head of business development, to team head relationship management. He joined Julius Baer in 2016. “Change has been a recurring theme in my professional journey, and I took up mentoring in the midst of an organisation-wide transformation process some ten years ago,” he says. “Especially in times of change, an open conversation with a trusted mentor is extremely valuable, allowing you to gain perspective on what’s happening and discuss new challenges and implications.”
Jens also finds mentoring to be a powerful development tool to gauge one’s own propensity for change. “Together with my mentor, I looked at questions such as ‘In which aspects am I really open for change and in which ones not? Would I be willing to change locations, join a different division? Or how comfortable would I really be with a new job profile?’ This immensely prepared me to cope with change and define my way forward.”
Open to everyone at Julius Baer
For all its many benefits, mentoring at Julius Baer is supported at every level in the organisation and open to all employees. “At Julius Baer, mentoring is for everyone. No matter where in your career you are or what your aspirations may be, you can make use of our mentoring offering. But it’s important that you take the initiative,” says Alida, Team Head at Julius Baer’s Geneva office.
She embarked on mentoring only recently after completing a team leadership development programme, a six-month course offered by Julius Baer in cooperation with IMD, a world-renown academic institution and business school. “I needed to carry on my learning as a team head and was grateful to find out about the Julius Baer’s open mentoring offering and the professional support right from the get-go,” she says.
“From an employer’s perspective, we want to empower our employees to drive their personal development. By offering mentoring programmes that support the matching process and provide structured guidance throughout the mentoring journey, we enable both mentee and mentor to make the most out of this relationship”, states Stephanie, responsible for Julius Baer’s Mentoring Programmes.
Know your goal and be proactive
“The compatibility with my mentor was truly the first success for me,” Alida shares, “This was essential for the conversation to become honest. You don’t want to hide anything and, vice versa, your mentor shouldn’t be afraid to point out your flaws. And when your mentor does, you want to receive that message. That’s the mutual understanding that you have to have with your mentor.”
She also mentions another important factor, “The key is to know your goal and be proactive. You, as a mentee, have to be the one leading the relationship. You cannot be passive and wait for the mentor to solve your problems. Take ownership, prepare, and do your homework,” she emphasises.
Brimming with energy and a hands-on attitude, Alida has learned early on to prepare for life’s twists and turns and is always open to exploring new challenges and opportunities. Her out-of-the-ordinary life journey has taken the French-born from wood engineering to a two-year volunteering in Africa to banking, joining Julius Baer in 2016.
But how does she see mentoring helping her towards achieving her goal? “My goal is to expand my leadership skills and to progress on my team head journey,” she explains. “For that, I have to observe my behaviour, how I perform, motivate and empower my team, handle conflicts, and give effective feedback.” Alida uses a notebook to write down these observations, preparing her for the next mentoring conversation. “This has already given me more confidence in my role and in approaching difficult situations. I also became more accepting of criticism.”
Rita also shares one of her experiences where mentoring helped her turn a critical situation around. “I once inherited someone in my team who was much older and experienced than me. When I became his line manager, I was truly struggling with the prospect of managing this person and, for example, giving him a year-end performance rating,” she recalls. “My mentor was the only person with whom I could discuss this openly, and he said, ‘Okay, he doesn’t respect you yet, but why should he if he also doesn’t know you yet. Why don’t you give him some time to get to know you and see what happens?’” This, as Rita explained, was exactly what happened. “Had I not received this advice, very likely, I wouldn’t have had enough patience to let the relationship develop.”
Such advice, ultimately, has a real and lasting impact and, in Rita’s opinion, puts mentoring in a category of its own compared with other learning opportunities offered by Julius Baer.
“Education and lifelong learning are a responsibility and obligation to stay relevant and up to date in our industry. Certifications and courses are one part, and Julius Baer provides best-in-class options,” she explains. “However, when it comes to experience, this is where the real wisdom lies. Experience, in my opinion, is the highest form of education. You can learn from your own experience over the years, but you can also tap into someone else’s experience through a mentoring relationship.”
Rewarding in both directions
By benefitting from the experience of other colleagues through mentoring, Rita and Jens were motivated to support the company’s mentoring programmes by becoming mentors themselves. An opportunity, both agree, that has been personally and professionally rewarding. As Jens describes it: “Mentoring is never one way. It works in both directions and both mentor and mentee are learning in such a relationship. Personally for me, this is very satisfying.”
“Being a mentor taught me how to ask the right questions and to listen,” says Rita, emphasising how many social skills she has gained, such as becoming more competent in connecting with people, being compassionate, and building trust. “For me, being a mentor is living our purpose and values. And it is also essential for what we do as wealth managers.”
Jens adds, “I’m convinced that the deep and personal exchange that mentoring facilitates, brings the whole organisation forward, contributing to our joint success. Mentoring, building trusted relationships, and delivering excellence to our clients go hand in hand.”
And Rita notes, “People are what make a difference in our business, and at Julius Baer we have some of the best in the industry. Let’s take full advantage of that and use mentoring as a unique way to learn from each other and help each other grow.”