The New York Times has an article entitled Older Entrepreneurs Take on the “Concrete Ceiling” about how baby boomers are starting businesses and the help they are getting from mentors and coaches.
The Global Good Fund, which began with a program for emerging entrepreneurs from around the world, will apply that same model to the new fellowship. Fellows participate in rigorous training, working with professional coaches and mentors over 15 months — a length of time that, according to Ms. Berman, avoids “drive-by mentoring” that is “not likely to create lasting help for the entrepreneur.”
Coaches from previous years have included Ted Leonsis, founder and chief executive of Monumental Sports and Entertainment, and Lydia Thomas, former president and chief executive of Noblis, a nonprofit research group based outside Washington. On the fellowship’s board of advisers are Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace Prize winner who founded Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, and Sheila Johnson, one of the founders of Black Entertainment Television.
After months of coaching and evaluating skills, the fellows are to meet for five days of what José V. Fernández, the fund’s director of programs, calls “an intense boot camp on leadership.” They will also collaborate online.
So if you are a baby boomer, as I am, it’s never too late to start a company, but you’d be wise to take advantage of the many organizations that can help provide mentoring, especially for social entrepreneurs.
Mentorphile 