For this Update in Product | Strategy | Innovation I will provide some news on a recent Post and some next steps for the newsletter. I received positive feedback on mentoring opportunity youth and this Post in particular on Organizing a Mentor Program.
The young man, Walid, that I mentor and I discussed how to scale up the Mentor Program where he works at JP Morgan with input from some of his peers who are also Year Up alumni and some leaders within the Year Up organization. Everyone agreed with the concept of using an Alpha deployment to go from 1 mentor/mentee pair to multiple pairs, but on a manageable scale to learn and iterate. Over the summer, I recruited other HBS alumni to participate as mentors. But prior to the current cohort of Year Up students starting their 6-month internships, the HBS Association of Boston emailed local HBS alumni regarding the opportunity to mentor opportunity youth completing these internships. This produced more business leaders interested in mentoring opportunity youth.
Mentor/Mentee Pairs in Boston
As of September 1st, we have paired 8 HBS alumni with 8 Year Up students completing 6-month internships at JP Morgan. These pairs have committed to meeting virtually every other week for 30-minutes using Zoom or a similar platform. This makes it easier for everyone to adhere to the cadence of frequent opportunities to connect on topics that matter. We have more HBS alumni who would like to mentor opportunity youth, so we are now exploring how we can efficiently expand to other Year Up students completing internships at other organizations. That is the ultimate objective of the Mentor Program where any Year Up student who wants an experienced business leader mentor is paired with one during their corporate-sponsored internship. But that will only happen with a series of successful deployments to scale first within Boston and then beyond.
Harvard Business School has also recently announced a full day event on its campus September 15th with the Harvard Law School and Kennedy School of Government regarding Reimagining Business in the Public Square. Workforce Equity will be one of the thematic sessions with Gerald Chertavian, Founder & CEO, Year Up and Maurice Jones, CEO, OneTen speaking on panel from 2:00-4:30 pm that will cover the challenges opportunity youth face. This will be an opportunity to socialize the Mentor Program as a means for companies to onboard more opportunity youth as a means to fill many of their open jobs. At least that is what I intend to pitch to this group.
But I’m even more excited about the opportunity to learn and improve the Mentor Program through our current Alpha deployment in Boston. HBS alumni are incredible and will provide insights into what worked well for them and what could improve. This would help inform a Mentor Playbook that will evolve over time. JP Morgan has also championed a Buddy Program for the Year Up interns that is run by the Year Up alumni who are working full time there. This provides peer-to-peer mentorship for the interns. We will also use this to develop a Mentee Playbook to help interns get the most out of their mentorship opportunity.
Next Steps for the Newsletter
One of the outcomes of multiple posts through this newsletter is a growing understanding of the importance innovation will play in 3 critical global markets over many decades:
Energy/Transportation
Financial Services
Health Care
The first two markets are subjects I can dive deeper into through this medium, but Health Care is where I have spent most of my career as both a biomedical engineer and business leader. Over the last 2.5 years, I led a program for a corporate client to scale connected wearable sensor deployments in the workplace to reduce risky movements that often lead to repetitive motion injuries and musculoskeletal disorders. This program inspired an alliance of over 50 companies through the National Safety Council to collaborate on the prevention of these injuries within their operations. This made me rethink Health Care.
I joined a Cambridge-based clinical-stage pharmaceutical company full-time earlier this year as General Manager, Wearables. I’m scaling up projects and will communicate about those activities separately through other channels. But I gain insights from deep dives into the other key industries.
I’m also interested in Communities through Brands. Apple and Tesla come to mind, but what about Square (now a part of Block)? Over the summer, I noticed how unique, high-volume experiences like the Hy-Line Ferry to Nantucket, Cisco Brewery on Nantucket, Brookline Farmers Market vendors and others use Square as their point of sale system. These Brands appear to be building micro-Communities and Square seems to be a common denominator over other providers of financial services. But how and what is the outcome for these Brands and Square? And could Square or its parent Block be a key resource to build a “Community”?
The cadence of the newsletter will evolve to the 1st Friday of each month. This will allow more time to explore those topics and write about them here.
Enjoy your weekend!
Best,
Stephen
I’m long SQ and TSLA mentioned in this post. Nothing in this post is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research. The opinions and views expressed in this newsletter are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions, views or policies of any other organization, company or employer.