27 November 2018

PRESS RELEASE – Sherbrooke entrepreneurs have a new tool to develop both their companies and their full entrepreneurial potential: The group mentorship program offered by Sherbrooke Innopole, in collaboration with Réseau M.

This new program, which proved effective in pilot projects in Montréal and Québec City in 2018, aims to provide entrepreneurs with a space to encourage the sharing of lines of thought and avenues for action, and to discuss challenges, issues, and questions.

Each cohort will gather from 8 to 10 entrepreneurs working in non-competitive sectors for about a dozen monthly three-hour meetings. Led by experienced and trained mentors, these meetings will focus on each entrepreneur’s full development potential and will address themes chosen by the participants, such as leadership, vision/planning, and risk tolerance.

“My role as a mentor/group leader is to facilitate everyone’s participation and thus encourage communication. In concrete terms, the process provides an opportunity to learn from the mistakes and successes of peer entrepreneurs and mentors, take inspiration from their experiences, become more aware of and to challenge each other to be in a better position to move forward,” explained mentor Alain Delorme.

Suzanne Fournier, Business Mentoring Coordinator at Sherbrooke Innopole, noted that the concerns of entrepreneurs are often cross-cutting, whether they be at the head of a business or a plant: “By uniting entrepreneurs from various fields, group mentoring provides immediate access to a variety of entrepreneurial experiences, and by extension, to new perspectives. This is also a co-development activity that breaks the isolation typically experienced by entrepreneurs, by expanding their contact network. In addition, this is an interesting way to explore mentoring that might even prepare entrepreneurs to engage in individual mentoring.”

The program, open to all Sherbrooke business owners, is currently recruiting participants to launch a first cohort in February 2019. Entrepreneurs interested in participating are encouraged to contact us at info@sherbrooke-innopole.com.

Source: Sherbrooke Innopole