Consultant Bertie Bosrédon has 19 years’ experience in digital communications, and has worked in-house for the British Heart Foundation and Breast Cancer Care.
He has been a CharityComms mentor for two mentees, most recently Shaf Mansour, head of digital content and communities at Barnardo’s.
“My former mentee Shaf has talent and ambition but I would like to think the CharityComms’ mentoring scheme has helped give him the confidence to apply for more senior positions. He’s now well known in the sector and is heading up digital at Barnardo’s, helping the charity better support children and young people.
CharityComms asked me to be a mentor around three years ago, just after I became a freelance. At Breast Cancer Care, I managed a team of 25. What I liked most about management was trying to find out what people were good at. With mentoring, I felt you could help someone by sharing your experience without having to deal with the HR side of management.
Leading transformation
At our first meeting, Shaf and I talked about our backgrounds and connected really well. We’ve got similar views on the sector, which I think is important in the mentoring relationship. We talked about the ‘digital transformation’ work I do. It’s about skilling up staff outside digital to recognise this expertise and how it can help them prepare content and use analytics. In our sessions, Shaf and I discussed ways to influence senior management – and now he is heading up digital at Barnardo’s.
Through being a mentor, I’ve learnt to listen more. As a consultant, I’m used to people listening to me, so it’s interesting to hear different perspectives. Working with someone new to the sector, who is creative and trying new things, was refreshing and helped motivate me in my work with charities. I have recommended a Google digital marketing course and
audioBoom to other charities, after Shaf told me how useful they were.
Shaf and I still meet regularly to share ideas and I get an update about his fantastic progress in the sector. It was a successful match and I’d definitely be a mentor again. I think the mentoring scheme can help people network, be less isolated in their roles and feel that their skills are recognised.”
Read Shaf’s experience of being Bertie’s mentee and a mentor himself.