Me & my mentor: Alex Willis & Caroline Taylor

Wimbledon Head of Communications, Content, and Digital Alex Willis in conversation with her mentor, IBM Global Markets CMO Caroline Taylor.

Episode 63 of the Leaders Sport Business Podcast features the first instalment in a new mini-series of podcasts: Me & my mentor - a series of conversations that get to the heart of mentor-mentee relationships across the sports industry. A recurring theme in the Leaders Meet: Diversity series, mentorship is acknowledged as an increasingly effective personal and professional development, though one that is only scantly understood.

In this first episode, Wimbledon's Alex Willis talks to her mentor, Caroline Taylor OBE, CMO of Global Markets at IBM, a long-time Wimbledon sponsor (conversation begins at 13:07).

Willis is one of the leading lights in a new generation of sports industry digital and marketing specialists. She began her career as a journalist, before joining the All England Lawn Tennis Club, initially as Digital Content Editor, in 2011. Taylor is an international marketing expert, and currently looks after IBM's global marketing function. She first joined the computing giant in 1997, and has played an active role in the evolving mentoring programmes within the organisation. She currently maintains 18 formal mentorship relationships.

On the agenda:

- What mentoring means;

- How the mentoring relationship works in practice;

- The concept of reverse mentorship;

- Confidence, where it comes from, and permission to be believed in;

- The difference between mentoring men and mentoring women;

- Why your significant other isn't necessarily the most effective mentor.