WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH YOUR WONDER WOMEN STATUS?
WONDERWORKS LAUNCHES ITS 2022 SECOND MENTORING PROGRAMME
DECEMBER, 2021
When Sarah Wildman-King and Miranda Hart, founders of the female-led Wonderworks, a creative agency for the drinks industry,
launched their Wonder Women mentoring programme in 2021 for women who work, or want to work in the drinks industry,
it was because they had a dream to ‘pay it forward’ and empower other women in their industry.
But why? What was it that made Sarah and Miranda want to launch an industry-specific mentoring programme? After all, they know the drinks industry inside out.
They’ve travelled the world meeting master distillers, entrepreneurs and corporate giants and run a hugely successful agency working with cutting-edge drinks brands.
But meeting other women on their travels they saw a need for confidence, connections and advice, which they felt they could help with and respond to.
“We meet brilliant women working in the industry. We build relationships and offer informal mentoring, which means we see a lot of very talented and awesome women doubting themselves, feeling a little lost and needing a bit of confidence boosting / a sounding board / kick up the butt, which is sometimes
all they need to set them off to do wonderful things. We thought if we are doing this informally there must be a need for it –
so we decided to launch Wonder Women to connect and support more brilliant women in drinks.”
Having received kind advice from colleagues and connections throughout the industry themselves, Sarah says,
“Our journey wouldn’t have been the same without the generosity of colleagues far and wide
who have shared their expertise with us so we wanted to do that for other women”.
Now, following the end of their successful 2021 programme, which saw two applicants receive individual mentoring,
Hannah and Megan from Stretch Social, and a further successful 20 applicants facilitated to become part of an empowering
Wonder Women group, Sarah and Miranda have gone on to launch their second initiative, to take place in 2022.
We asked Sarah what it’s been like to put their Wonder Women mentoring dream into action
and what she’s enjoyed most about the one-to-one sessions they’ve delivered.
“Seeing the growth in confidence and self-belief of our mentees was the best thing.
Learning that sometimes just by giving people the space for a discussion and for them to talk things through they can overcome challenges, was brilliant.
Mentoring isn’t about giving people all the answers, it’s about giving them the safe space to discover them for themselves.”
The mentoring programme also included valuable group sessions with key note speakers,
specially chosen by Sarah and Miranda for their insight and connectedness within the industry.
Sarah spoke to us in more detail about these and how the sessions evolved into such empowering spaces.
“The group sessions allowed for our Wonder Women to learn from women in the industry that they have seen and admired, but never known how to connect with.
And our guests were incredibly open, frank and happy to help and share their thoughts.
Stephanie Jordan was our first guest, and I’m very grateful to her for challenging me to flip our agenda on its head – a format which we then repeated.
“Rather than just share her story as a way to inspire we got our Wonder Women to take the floor and in 180 seconds
tell us who they are, why they are here, and what specifically they want to get from that session.
This enabled our guests to then share pointed and super relevant insight rather than just their general stories.
It also sparked more personal and more open discussion. Super valuable and very energising to be a part of.”
Proving that mentoring is incredibly powerful for mentor and mentee alike, the second programme is set to follow a similar format.
We asked Sarah if she would do anything differently.
“I don’t think so you know. Maybe encourage more connections between people outside of the group get-togethers.”
Feedback from mentees, Hannah and Megan, when asked how they felt about the programme
was resoundingly positive, signalling a real boost to confidence in their careers going forward.
“The mentoring journey was so empowering and I am so much better for it.”
“It helps cut through the noise to give you real clarity on what you need to do and what will make you happy.
Challenging you to really know yourself properly. I have found a bolder more confident me has emerged,
I like her and it feels fantastic! Thank you Wonderworks.”
For women who work or want to work in the drinks industry the Wonder Women mentoring programme
proves that there is a place where each of us can find and share super powers.