The Henley Entrepreneur Mentor Programme

As 'Mentors', these alumni can offer advice and support to students and recent graduates starting their own business.

The Mentors serve as independent advisors to students and alumni who are either seeking to start or have recently started their own business. The Programme allows students and alumni to get in touch with Mentors and develop long-term relationships.

The Role of the Mentor

The role of the Mentor is to provide high quality and unbiased advice to students and recent graduates that are seeking guidance on starting or building their own business. This advice can be provided either online or in person (at Henley Business School or at a location to suit both).

The Mentor will typically spend around 4-6 hours per month providing mentoring to students and recent graduates, although there is no stipulation for the minimum or maximum amount of time providing mentoring. It is not expected that the Mentor will have to do work either in preparing for or following up on mentoring sessions.

It is an absolute requirement that the Mentor does not promote or engage in selling their (or their company's) services to any students and recent graduates who are being mentored.

For continuity, HELAB expects the Mentor to provide services for a minimum of one term and ideally one full academic year. Please note that the role of Mentor is non-salaried.

Benefits of the Role

The Mentor will benefit from the role in a number of ways:

- Seeing students and recent graduates succeed in starting and growing their business

- Engaging with and being introduced to other opportunities within HELAB, such as speaking and participating on panels or as judges on various competitions and awards

- Recruiting from the University of Reading and/or the Henley Business School

- Meeting other Mentors and exploring collaborations

- Attending an annual dinner and sharing experiences

- Being invited to Henley Business School events, including speakers' panels, guest speaker lectures and networking opportunities

Enlisting Mentors

HELAB is enlisting the services of alumni with significant entrepreneurial experience to become Mentors across most areas of expertise, including finance and business development and operations. Other relevant areas include high growth industry sectors such as e-commerce, technology, media, telecoms, life sciences, financial services, fast-moving consumer goods, sports and leisure, retail and social enterprise.

To ask about becoming a Mentor, please email Jurek Sikorski, Director of Henley Enterprise Lab, on jurek.sikorski@henley.ac.uk