Sponsoring Women to Success

I joined the IVY Female Collective, a boutique network for women, in 2020. The Collective was started by founder Lisa Robben with the intention of creating real connections between ambitious women to support and inspire each other. I still remember the feeling of being in a room for the first time with so many women who are all well-disposed towards each other and share similar experiences. I had some of the most valuable conversations of my life at the IVYs and learned a lot for my career path.

Some time ago, I was talking to a colleague about our respective experiences with women's and men's networks and we quickly realized that they don't necessarily coincide. While he was visibly amazed at the deep conversations and close connections within the IVYs, I was surprised at how much direct or indirect business he had generated from his network to date. The bottom line was that our conversation could be summarized as follows: I had mainly used my network for mentoring, he had mainly used his for sponsorship. This is a major difference, because while mentoring primarily means exchange, advice and knowledge transfer, sponsorship means active advocacy. And only the latter actively promotes the career of another person: Doors are opened, projects are arranged and recommendations are made.

According to the KPMG Global Female Leaders Outlook 2025, 76 % of women name their personal network as the most important factor for professional success. I, too, have always been aware that the right contacts can help me to advance in my career. Nevertheless, I used my network for exchange and coaching, but not to directly drive the success of my business. Science says that I am not an isolated case.

The study Gender Differences in Networking by Friederike Mengel from 2024 bundles research from the field and comes to the following conclusion: women tend to form more cooperation-oriented networks, while men network more strategically and allocatively. Other studies confirm that women are more often offered mentoring, while men are more often offered sponsorship. The analysis of LinkedIn data also shows that men send contact requests to people in higher positions more frequently in a professional context, while women use the platform more to communicate and maintain relationships with existing contacts.

So women actually network differently to men. One reason for this is "personal hesitation": women tend to have moral reservations about "instrumentalizing" relationships and also underestimate their abilities and their own benefit within a network. Both are the result of female socialization.

Don't get me wrong: exchange, advice and knowledge transfer are valuable and should definitely be maintained. But the proportion of women is falling and diversity programs designed to prevent this are becoming less common. The Allbright Foundation recently published a new report on the proportion of women on German boards: After years of positive development, the proportion of women is now stagnating at a low level (19.7 %) and men are also being used more frequently again for new recruits (from 37 % to 20 %).

I am aware that people cannot change behaviours based on their socialization overnight. This also applies to networking. That's why I have a suggestion. Let's start with this: Every time someone asks you for a referral for a project, panel or speaking gig, or when you have assignments of your own, ask yourself this question: "Do I know a woman I can refer?" Open the door. Let's sponsor women to success.

Aissu Diallo is Executive Director Digital Excellence at the Düsseldorf-based creative agency Butter. She is also Chairwoman of the GWA Young Board.