Make Your Mark for Students
Soon after Covid-19 locked the UK down for the first time, I received a call from Baillie Gifford’s early careers team. ‘Can you run Make Your Mark virtually for our 2020 interns?’, they asked. ‘And can you do it in 3 weeks?’
Of course, I said yes.
Back then, hundreds of Baillie Gifford executives had already completed my 12-hour Make Your Mark programme, and, given how the firm embraces coaching, offering it to young people, particularly in a time of crisis, was an obvious next step.
Little did I know how significant coaching those interns would be.
Emily Mason
In a nutshell, just as I was closing the last session, Emily Mason, then a Heriot-Watt University student, told me the programme was so powerful that she wanted her Watt Women in STEM colleagues to experience it too.
Emily, who founded the student-led society and was then its Chair, introduced me to her deputy, Kirsty Mitchell, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Make Your Mark Student Schools
Emily and Kirsty became my first Make Your Mark Ambassadors. Together we went on to organise and deliver four virtual Make Your Mark Summer Schools For Students. Open to all and free-to-attend, the Schools brought together hundreds of 18-25-year-olds from around the world with professionals in my network who, having completed Make Your Mark themselves, were willing to share their learnings, experience, and tips to help the young participants understand that building confidence, presence and communications skills is lifelong work, which even ‘successful people’ have to work at it.
Kirsty Mitchell
Interestingly, as well as the students benefitting greatly from attending the Schools, many of the professionals were repeatedly heard to say: ‘Well I wish I’d had this experience when I’d been starting out. What might have been different if I had?”
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Emily, Kirsty and I also recruited a further 15 Make Your Mark Ambassadors, young people who, having completed a Make Your Mark Student School, wanted to promote the power of coaching and the benefits of offering it to young people before they enter the workplace full time. In return for their efforts, I created case studies and social media activities to showcase my Ambassadors as leaders of tomorrow and offered them, free of charge, various development opportunities, including group and
1-2-1 coaching.