2009 TMP Awards
Announcing The 2009 Mentoring Partnership Award Winners
Now in its fourth year, The Mentoring Partnership Awards continue the tradition of acknowledging those individuals and organizations that have made a special contribution to the program.
Congratulations to the 2009 Mentoring Award winners! Below are links to profiles of winners:
Special Achievement Award: Michael Schafler
Mentee of the Year Award: Karen Brown
Mentee of the Year Award: Kenneth Chiguvare
Mentor of the Year Award (Nominated by a Partner): John Phelan
Mentor of the Year Award (Nominated by a Mentee): Carrie Samuels
Special Achievement Award Winner: Michael Schafler
Nominator: Michael’s mentee, Ria Madan
Match made by: JVS
Special Achievement Award winner, Michael Schafler, Fraser Milner Casgrain’s (FMC) Toronto practice, with his nominator and mentee, Ria Madan.
Michael Schafler is a partner at Fraser Milner Casgrain’s (FMC) Toronto practice.
To The Mentoring Partnership, this former navy officer is someone special.
Here is why.
We met Michael in the spring of last year and he immediately made the inextricable link between mentoring and his firm’s business and diversity objectives.
By summer, Michael corralled the support of his firm from the top down and was appropriately named FMC’s executive mentoring champion.
When fall came around, the seeds of change Michael strategically planted grew into a remarkable achievement not only for Fraser Milner Casgrain, but also for internationally-trained lawyers, and for the legal sector.
Within only five months of his involvement with The Mentoring Partnership, Schafler became a pioneer for the mentoring movement and was instrumental in FMC signing on as the first law firm to ever join TMP as a corporate partner.
Michael is now leading discussions on expanding mentoring to FMC’s five offices outside Toronto.
After only one year of the firm’s involvement in The Mentoring Partnership, the business lawyer inspired other firms to take note of the ways in which mentoring can be a conduit to strengthening their capacity to compete innovatively in local and global markets.
As a result of his work, two other leading law firms in Toronto are shaping plans to come on-board as corporate partners.
In Michael’s words: “The world economy is becoming more global every day. I therefore think that as lawyers – business lawyers especially – we need to broaden our horizons and learn more about international legal systems and how those systems interact with their local economies.”
This philosophy is the basis Michael’s work and is central to The Mentoring Partnership.
Mentee of the Year Award: Karen Brown
Nominator: Jasmine Tehara, TD Bank Financial Group
Match made by: ACCES Employment Services, Brampton
Mentee of the Year Award winner, Karen Brown, with her nominator and mentor, Jasmine Tehara, TD Bank Financial Group.
“I’ve had the opportunity to be a TRIEC mentor since 2005 and I have never met anyone of Karen’s calibre…”
This is what TD Bank’s, Jasmine Tehara, said of her mentee, and one of this year’s Mentee of The Year Award winners, Karen Brown.
Karen’s high professional calibre is underscored by over ten years of national-level experience in the financial services industry in Jamaica.
Her professional repertoire includes an eight year term with the highest regulatory authority in her home country, where she monitored the financial health of companies with assets exceeding U$2 billion.
Karen’s primary challenge was designing an effective plan to present this level of professional acumen in a way that would be relevant to the Canadian context.
Enter The Mentoring Partnership.
With the wise counsel of her mentor, this seasoned market analyst developed a three-tiered approach to her job search.
Karen jumped at every chance for an information interview; she secured a job shadowing opportunity, and volunteered in order to accumulate Canadian experience.
All three techniques pivoted on a strategy that is the mantra of The Mentoring Partnership.
It’s called networking.
Just how effective was Karen’s networking strategy?
It landed her a job in her sector, with TD Bank.
Her mentor cannot say enough about Karen’s positive attitude; to everything, even though she heard many ‘NOs’ before she found her big break.
Mentee of the Year Award: Kenneth Chiguvare
Nominator: Alan Keith, 20/20 Assessment
Match made by: JVS
Mentee of the Year Award winner, Kenneth Chiguvare, with his nominator and mentor, Alan Keith, 20/20 Assessment.
The recession has made it even harder for skilled immigrants to find the right work.
And Kenneth Chiguvare understands this more than most, but with his can-do attitude and vibrant personality you have no way of knowing the challenges he faced.
This experienced business analyst works a full time night job in customer service to maintain the breadwinner role for his family.
And each day, before he starts his shift, Kenneth directs all his energy into searching for the opportunity that will shape the professional success that he envisions.
With the view that he cannot achieve different results by using the same conventional methods, he stepped outside his comfort zone and found The Mentoring Partnership.
Despite the challenges he faced while navigating the job market, Kenneth used his four month mentoring relationship to accentuate only the positive attributes of his immigrant experience.
He started the program with a great first impression and although the four months have long past, he continues to inspire his mentor.
It comes as no surprise that Kenneth and his mentor, Alan Keith, still remain good friends.
“Kenny believes the past does not equal the future…he has an unrelenting thirst for self improvement,” Alan remarks.
Mentor of the Year Award: John Phelan
Nominator: Myra Consentino, Mentoring Coach, Sheridan Institute
Mentor of the Year Award winner (as nominated by a partner), John Phelan, Regional Municipality of Halton, with nominators from Sheridan Institute: Susan Carpenter (on the left) and Myra Consentino (on the right).
Not many people can articulate the benefits of The Mentoring Partnership more convincingly than John Phelan.
This is why he has so much success in recruiting mentors and guiding mentees in the right direction at the Regional Municipality of Halton.
As director of HR Services, John is in a prime position to champion mentoring and its role in integration and he does exactly that.
Not only is he a champion of the program, John is the driving force behind Halton Region’s becoming a corporate partner with TMP, and played an instrumental role in the Region’s achievement of Best Employer for New Canadians.
John is now synonymous with the annual mentoring recognition event in Halton Region because he does not hesitate to get up, get out, and roll up his sleeves to organize the event, which attracts over 100 guests – including dignitaries like Ontario Minister John Milloy.
In between planning mentoring events, orienting new mentors, and simulating interviews with his mentees John finds the time to promote The Mentoring Partnership in television interviews.
The program is now a part of his family.
John’s wife, a manager with a leading credit company, is now a mentor exclusively as a result of John’s passion for and belief in the ways that TMP can make a difference to the labour market outcomes of new Canadians.
Mentor of the Year Award (Nominated by a Mentee): Carrie Samuels
Nominator: Anya Faingersh, Carrie’s mentee
Match made by: JVS
Mentor of the Year Award winner (as nominated by a mentee), Carrie Samuels, the Align Group Inc. (on the right) and her nominator and mentee, Anya Faingersh (on the left).
Anya Faingersh, a TMP mentee, will tell you that the definition of the term, role model, is very simple.
She will also tell you it requires only two words: Carrie Samuels.
Carrie Samuels influenced her mentee in a powerful way that compelled her to write an excellent nomination outlining how Carrie “changed her life.”
Helping internationally-trained engineers to achieve their professional objectives is not a new feat for this independent consultant, with upward of 18 years experience.
Carrie taught project management at Humber College to new engineers to Canada, and successfully mentored many skilled immigrants.
Her strategic planning expertise consistently finds its way in her conversations with mentees.
She cuts to the chase, identifies the unique features of the Canadian workplace, and focuses on the nuances of networking that consistently opens the portals of employment for her mentees.
This P. Eng. is a remarkable and effective mentor primarily because she tailors a strategy to each mentee, extracting tips and tricks from her broad engineering background.
In fact, the only handbook she uses is her own, and of course, the mentor handbook.
