The daughter of an entrepreneur – but never a life she imagined for herself – Nancy Wolk, Principal & Founder of eMentorConnect, is paving the way in cloud-based mentoring and knowledge transferring programs. With just a glance at her company’s website, it’s apparent that she and her colleagues are doing really big things with really big companies.
The seed for eMentorConnect was planted in Nancy’s head while she was helping a friend start a leadership development company. As part of her contributions, she led leadership development workshops because she was able to draw from her 20+ years as a sales leader at Pfizer. She recognized that there was a deficit in accessible mentoring when she noticed a pattern of people requesting mentoring at the end of every session that she led.
The seed had been planted, but only started to grow roots once Nancy met her now business partner, Sophie Williams, at a charity soccer league. The combination of Nancy’s business experience and Sophie’s IT background led to the conception of eMentorConnect and the plan was sketched out on none other than the back of a bar napkin. After sharing her business model with a client and receiving positive feedback, Nancy knew that this was a goal worth pursuing.
While eMentorConnect initially focused its efforts in mentoring those in healthcare, the company has expanded to include a broad range of ages and people. They offer services to those in non-profits, academia, even high schoolers, and college students! The most rewarding part of her job, she says, is getting to watch mentees transform and reach the goals that they set for themselves. In order to gauge if their client is satisfied and getting what they need out of the program, eMentorConnect sends out an initial customizable survey based on individual program objectives. Then, at the end of their program, mentees will receive another survey to gauge their transformation. The general consensus for eMentorConnect’s services is that they are life-changing and that participants would absolutely do it again.
Nancy candidly shared that, although they faced initial challenges with COVID, they have seen a great boom in companies coming to them for help. She says that with everyone working from home, employees talk to their colleagues more often, but are losing their water-cooler connections. With the implementation of her program, she is helping to restore a collaborative work environment and reignite the comradery that has dwindled away.
Uplifting and personable, one would never take Nancy as a person who encounters self-doubt, but she admits to being on the receiving end of it, at times, and talks about ways she combats it. She keeps herself disciplined with exercise to help clear her mind and break any looped internal tracks of negative self-talk. She also enjoys reading and admits to being a fiction book lover. However, she shares that one of the books that has impacted her career is Play Like a Man, Think Like a Women by Gail Evans. It is a book that led her to start Pfizer’s women in leadership program that has been running for 19 years and counting.
eMentorConnect prides themselves on helping people see their true potential and Nancy admits that every day is full of wins, but the biggest accomplishment she has witnessed for her company is her team. She says that she is proud of their cohesiveness, engagement, and positive attitude and has complete confidence in them to deliver top results to their clients.
To learn more about Nancy or eMentorConnect you can visit their website at www.ementorconnect.com or follow them on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/ementorconnect-llc/
