Santander UK launches latest Women Business Leaders' mentoring programme

Santander UK has today launched its latest programme to bolster its support for businesswomen across the UK - the Women Business Leaders’ mentoring programme.

Designed to support women in business across the UK, the mentoring programme pairs budding female entrepreneurs with established business leaders across all sectors, business sizes and geographies.

The bank is calling on all businesswomen who feel they would benefit from mentoring - as well as both male and female business owners who think they can add value by becoming a mentor – to sign up.

For the last two years, the bank has run the programme remotely due to the Covid pandemic. This has enabled more people to join as distance was no longer an issue and so much travel time was saved. Following last year’s programme, the bank expects to pair over 200 mentors and mentees.

Recent data revealed that the impact of the pandemic has been far greater on female employment than male employment in the UK. The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimated that women were a third more likely to be employed in sectors that were “shut down” over the first national lockdown, and thus particularly at risk of job loss.

Louise Robinson, head of breakthrough, Santander said: “The impacts of the pandemic on the UK labour market are stark. What’s clear is that women are taking a greater role at work and there’s never been a more crucial time for us to be supporting them with tailored business mentoring.

“SMEs are crucial to the UK’s economic recovery and having strong, female business leaders at the helm of these companies will help them to not only revive but to thrive.”

Vicky Whiter, owner at Peters’ Cleaners Ltd, was on the 2021 and programme and said: “The changes in me have been dramatic. In January and February 2021, the question was “Do I close?”, now I have a marketing director, a board, money in the bank and I’m sitting in a room about to go and talk about venture capital funding.”

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