I’ve worked in pensions administration for 12 years and I currently work in a consulting role. I was interested in joining the mentoring scheme as it’s an opportunity to speak to someone outside of my specific role and receive valuable insight into the industry from another perspective.

Our chats are relatively informal. My mentor asks me questions about what I’ve been doing and my thoughts on any industry changes. They’ve been keen to set me ‘homework’ so that the mentoring continues after our sessions. It’s really useful to be able to verbalise some of the challenges that we face in the industry and to get their views.

My mentor is a trustee, so pensions isn’t their day job, and my experience of trustees to date has been as clients. It’s fascinating for me to hear about their experiences with their scheme’s advisers and their expectations. I think it’s easy to forget sometimes when you’re delivering a piece of work that trustees/clients are just people and they want to receive information from us in the most uncomplicated way possible.

We don’t only talk about pensions. I’ve asked my mentor for advice about dealing with other work situations, such as general management queries. It has been really useful to be able to bounce ideas off of someone who doesn’t work in my organisation.

As a mentee, you are enrolled as a student of the Institute of Leadership and Management’s (ILM) MyLeadership Programme. This provides bite size learning in all areas of leadership. At the end of each module you can take a quiz to make sure that you’ve understood the key points. Some of the modules are trickier than others, but there’s a great range of topics and additional resources available. I’ve loved completing the modules and it’s great that we’re getting the chance to complete a qualification that will stand us in good stead in our careers.

I’m looking forward to completing more of the modules over the coming months and meeting with my mentor to discuss progress. I hope that by completing the course and being mentored I’ll be able to apply to be a mentor in the coming years and give something back to the PMI.