Experiences of Mentoring in Tech: An interview with Patricia Kelly Marsh, MD
As a strong advocate of mentorship, particularly in the field of UX, I wanted to create a series based on mentorship to bring to life experiences from others and highlighting the importance of peer-to-peer learning. I also want to highlight the power of mentoring in creating diversity and inclusion in the field of tech.
Within this series, I will be interviewing mentees to find out about how they have developed through mentorship and how it has helped them with career growth and provide encouragement in their chosen area.
In this blog post, I will be focusing on a mentee’s experience from the Black Valley (BV)’s 8-week mentoring programme; an initiative that helps to address the lack of diversity in tech by increasing the black tech pipeline and incubating black-led start-ups.
Here I interviewed Patricia Kelly Marsh, MD, a mentee of BV’s April Cohort and Founder and CEO of Background Noise LLC. She created the company’s premiere and provisionally patented app, ShhParty App: the future of Social Media Entertainment and the New Horizon of the Content Creators’ Market.
Patricia Kelly Marsh, MD
1. How did you find your mentor?
My chosen mentor was Sunil Suri and I found him to be an exceptional fit. I interviewed for BV in hopes of preparing for pitching to investors for furthering my business and ShhParty App, the premiere app of my company.
2. What were your core reasons for finding a mentor?
The reasons why I wanted to find a mentor was to help with the preparation to pitch to investors for furthering my business and ShhParty App.
3. What outcomes did you want to achieve from mentorship?
I wanted to further my knowledge of the process when seeking funding and the initial steps for startups.
4. What were the mentoring sessions like and how did they help to achieve your overall goal?
The mentoring session were Zoom conferences that would cover the objectives themselves (eg. reviewing pitch slides and presentation of said pitch). This helped me to directly be able to achieve the goal of preparation for pitching.
5. How did you find accountability from the sessions to complete set tasks or sanctions after the sessions?
There was the expectation that anything tasked by the mentor was completed by the mentee before the next session and at the end of each session there was clearly expressed expectations. If not completed, there were no stresses or worries. My mentor Sunil Suri showed great understanding and did over and beyond to help move the presentation into a place where it’s presentable and good enough for any VC company.
6. How have your skills and knowledge improved since being mentored?
I came into BV without a pitch or practice on presenting pitches and am graduating with accomplishing both these things to the level at the industry’s expectations.
7. How did you find the mentee-mentor relationship and how did you maintain it?
I found the relationship to be mutually beneficial: he benefited in being able to give back and I benefited in that I am ready to take my business and my apps to the next level.
8. Any other comments regarding your experience with mentoring?
I enjoyed these 8 weeks of being in BV’s mentorship programme. I love the 1:1 attention because it rarely fails to let either individual down. You are held accountable and if there was a lack on one side the mentor was there to help or find someone else who could. The vast network that’s ever-growing and evolving in BV ensures success for both parties.
I hope that the process becomes even more tailored in that there is a database of mentors and mentees on BV’s website that has an algorithm to match mentor and mentee based on needs and expertise. I also think it wise to have an alum database to recruit former BV graduates once they are in a position to mentor or give job/network connections.
Originally published at https://www.samjayneburden.co.uk on June 6, 2021.
