The IPA’s mentoring service for agency heads 1. What’s special about the IPA service?
The service is delivered by people with a real knowledge of the agency business. All of the
fifteen mentors on the panel are IPA Fellows with extensive agency experience, which makes them ideally placed to listen to, and help, the agency heads of today.
The IPA mentors have all been on a mentoring training course and have been provided with an Advice Pack, prepared by the leading expert in mentoring,
Dr David Clutterbuck.
The IPA service is completely confidential between mentor and mentee. The IPA mentors are solely concerned with helping their mentees in their personal progression and with the development of their business. This contrasts with some in-house systems where the mentee may feel that confidentiality is not absolute.
The IPA service has been running for over six years now. Many relationships last 1-2 years (it’s completely up to the mentee) but some have lasted longer. The feedback received from mentees has been overwhelmingly enthusiastic.
2. How does the service work? The
panel of mentors consists of fifteen very experienced advertising people, all of them IPA Fellows, who have retired from day-to-day agency life but still have connections with, and a passion for, the advertising business.
Prospective mentees can talk through their requirements with the IPA, and there is a simple ‘matching questionnaire’ to help identify the most appropriate mentor.
A ‘no commitment’ meeting between mentor and mentee can be arranged, prior to the relationship getting under way formally.
There is an IPA Advice Pack issued to both mentor and mentee.
It is up to the mentee and mentor to agree when and where they will meet and what they will discuss. On average, meetings take place about every two months (though it can be more or less frequent) with some telephone and e-mail contact in between meetings.
3. How much does it cost?
The annual cost of the scheme to the mentee depends upon the number of sessions held. The mentor charges a set fee for each session, whilst the IPA’s only charge is a flat fee of £1,000 to cover the initial facilitation work to get the relationship underway.
Based on a ‘typical’ first year of six sessions, the total cost to the mentee would be £6,000, which represents excellent value for money when compared to many outside consultants and non-executive directors.
4. Successful IPA mentors Successful IPA mentors have included those with experience of top London creative agencies (Marilyn Baxter, Keith Dunnell, Graham Hinton, Michael Hockney, Adrian Vickers); top media agencies (Tim Cox, Chris Morley); and leading regional agencies (Richard Lewis, Paul Morley).
Confidentiality and trust are critical to the relationship, so the details of what is discussed are entirely confidential. However we do have a case history (
published in Campaign, June 2006 ) in which the workings of a particular relationship are discussed. We’re grateful to Guy Robertson and Adrian Vickers for sharing their experiences.
The mentor can play a number of roles — sounding board, advisor, counsellor, facilitator — and can help in a number of areas such as growing the business, client relationships, financial management and people management.
5. Feedback Feedback on the service has been extremely enthusiastic, for example:
“It’s very valuable to have someone coming in from outside and asking you questions. Having the time with an outsider forces you to concentrate on the issues and not put them off. It made me think about the structure of the agency and how to go forward.”
“It’s made me look at problems differently and think more clearly on how to plan the future. The process has resulted in wholesale changes at the agency.”
“I know what to do, but it helps to have an experienced person to discuss issues and to ensure that it happens.”
“Mentoring is going brilliantly. X was certainly the right choice for me.”
“We love our time with Y. He’s a massive inspiration and a delight to know. Thank you for enabling it.”
“I’m able to discuss issues ‘warts and all’, with no holding back.”
6. Find out more If you would like to find out more about the service, please contact the IPA’s Patrick Mills (
patrick@ipa.co.uk/ 0207 201 8208)