Sponsors and Mentors: How they Can Help Your Career

Sponsors and Mentors: How they Can Help Your Career

Sponsors go a step beyond mentors to actively promote individuals, their careers and provide them access to opportunities for advancement.
By Glenn Cook

Nina Stachenfeld, PhD, FAPS, was working with a Yale School of Medicine colleague on a grant application when she witnessed an excellent example of leadership that has stayed with her. 

“She’s an MD, and I’m a PhD, and we were working on a grant to recruit more diverse clinical populations,” says Stachenfeld, senior research scientist in obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at Yale. “At one point, she said a younger faculty member she had been mentoring should take over her part of the grant. What she was thinking of, handing off what she was doing to a younger individual, was a great opportunity for someone else.”

The decision by Stachenfeld’s colleague to shift from mentor to sponsor—someone who actively champions and advocates for others—is critical in the professional development of future generations. Direct sponsorship is especially needed for women and other marginalized individuals who traditionally have not had the same opportunities to advance in their careers as their white male colleagues. 

“I see mentorship as a gift—a person who is senior to you in the workplace who feels you’re very worthwhile, lends advice and guidance, and provides you with a shoulder to lean on if you’re struggling,” says economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett, PhD, author of “Forget A Mentor, Find a Sponsor.” “Sponsorship, on the other hand, is an investment—a senior person who sits in a spot where he or she can open doors that are important to you and your career.”

Mentor vs. Sponsor

What’s a good way to describe the difference between a mentor and a sponsor? Mentors say, “You should apply to speak at conferences. These are great opportunities.” On the other hand, sponsors say, “I nominated you to speak in this conference session. Can you do it?”

“The mentor is right—this is a great opportunity,” says Erica Heinrich, PhD, an assistant professor of biomedical sciences at the University of California (UC), Riverside, School of Medicine. “But if they can help you achieve that opportunity by acting as a sponsor, that’s even better.”

Understanding these different, but at times overlapping, functions can help you navigate the increasingly complicated world of work, whether it’s academia, industry, government or any type of lab environment. 

L. Gabriel Navar, PhD, FAPS, professor and chair of the Department of Physiology at Tulane University’s School of Medicine, views the mentor and adviser roles as similar. Both require a continuing, trusting relationship, while sponsorships are related to a specific process or function.

“I’m asked to sponsor a lot of people for different reasons, and I believe you should do what you can to help others, just like you were helped earlier in your career,” says Navar, a past APS president. “You review their credentials, see whether they have the qualifications needed, and go on from there. It’s an important role, but it does not require the long-term commitment. That’s not true when you’re mentoring someone.”

Stachenfeld says many people don’t know the difference between sponsoring and mentoring. She believes more would serve as sponsors if they realized it wasn’t such a commitment of time.

“Mentors and sponsors are both really important, and they play really different roles,” she says. “Finding a mentor is so much more difficult than finding a sponsor because of the time required and often the financial commitment. As a mentor, when I bring someone into the lab, it’s a large investment. And if that person doesn’t work out, it’s a very big thing for those of us who work in the soft money world of research.”

Navar says mentors often work with someone for more than a year, and in some cases for three years or more. His first mentor, Navar says, was a “dominant figure at all times, and we could not have an exchange of various theories and approaches.” When Navar moved into a mentor role, he was determined not to let that happen. 

“It’s guidance rather than dominance,” he says. “Being prescriptive doesn’t work. You need to listen to what the mentee has to say and share your experiences without telling them that it has to be done a certain way.”

When she was in her 20s, Hewlett was working as an assistant professor of economics at Barnard College. She found “an amazing mentor,” a historian who was in her 50s, who provided her with help and guidance. But when Hewlett came up for tenure, one of five candidates vying for two slots, her mentor proved to be “totally useless.”

“I didn’t know about sponsorship in any kind of formal way,” Hewlett says. “It was my first job, and there were no women in these kinds of jobs at Barnard. My mentor did not sit on any of the committees that were critical to my future. She wasn’t in the corridors of power. I needed to find someone who could open some doors and advocate for my value in my field.” Hewlett was turned down for tenure despite “a publications record that was as good” as the other candidates, she says. What she realized then was the tenure committee “didn’t know me and hadn’t met me” and she did not have someone working on her behalf.

“I became much more intentional, almost transactional about it,” she says. “You have to wear your value on your sleeve and persuade someone who is senior and who you respect to sponsor you. You don’t have to make them your best friend; you have to believe they have integrity and respect what they do.”

A Team of Support

Heinrich says new and upcoming professionals should look for a diverse team of people that can serve the various roles of mentor, sponsor and adviser. “With a diverse mentorship team, you ensure you benefit from the strengths of each mentor and adviser and have the career support of a sponsor,” she says, noting it’s rare that one person can serve all three roles.

According to Henrich, the best mentors and sponsors are those who have “demonstrated expertise in those areas of need, whether it be improving teaching, grant writing, publishing, personal development or anything else.” They also make “a point to really, truly listen to their mentee, hear their unique goals and help them identify areas for growth and concrete timelines, rather than simply providing a lecture.”

Adrienne P. Bratcher, PhD, an associate professor and vice chair of the Department of Anatomy, Pathology and Medical Education at Morehouse School of Medicine, says mentors helped guide her through the complexities of academia. Compare that to her advisers, who “have been a constant source of strategic guidance [who helped me] navigate complex decisions specific to my career path.” It has been the sponsors who have helped her secure leadership positions.

Having strong sponsorship during the undergraduate level and early trainee stages can make a substantial difference for many students. It can help students develop confidence and independence early on, Heinrich says. “If a trainee sees that their adviser or mentor is confident enough in them to recommend them for leadership positions or awards or have them represent the PI’s research group through presentations, this is a very meaningful experience.” 

Sponsorship and mentorship roles should overlap. Stachenfeld says mentors should also serve as sponsors, pushing their mentees to take part in speaking roles at conferences, serving on editorial boards and other professional development opportunities. The best sponsors are those who see things in others that they may not see in themselves.

Sponsors for Life

Finding a sponsor, Hewlett says, is a way to “cross the huge divide at the beginning of your professional career.” But she is quick to note that you will need mentors and sponsors at all phases. “There’s some kind of myth out there that you need mentors and sponsors when you’re younger,” she says. “I think you need both throughout your career.”

In UC-Riverside’s faculty mentorship program, Heinrich says many senior-level faculty are seeking out these relationships as they look at career transitions, work on technical skills or learn new approaches to teaching. Sponsorship adds up over time and can make individuals more competitive applicants for their next career stage.

Bratcher says she is pleased that more universities are creating dedicated mentorship programs, providing inclusion training for faculty and staff, and seeking out diverse mentors and sponsors. But, as she and others concede, more work needs to be done. As the diversity of undergraduate student populations has increased, Henrich says the leadership in many universities, editorial boards and societies has not followed suit. 

Formal mentorship programs can be helpful to trainees from underrepresented groups. At UC-Riverside, for example, new faculty can ask to be paired up with a diverse group of volunteer mentors, taking the uncertainty out of the process. “It helps faculty mentees identify mentors they relate to across campus who they may not have interacted with otherwise,” Heinrich says.

This is borne out in Hewlett’s research. The author says 21% of white men earn sponsorships in their careers, compared to 13% of white women and 5% of people of color. She calls it “an uneven playing field” that won’t change until leadership changes at the top.

“It’s important to get more diversity at the top of the house,” Hewlett says. “That unleashes a lot of new energy in terms of talent in the middle that is proactively looking for sponsorship. They can say, ‘Hey, it’s possible that someone who looks like me can make it, too.’” 

This article was originally published in the November 2024 issue of The Physiologist Magazine. Copyright © 2024 by the American Physiological Society. Send questions or comments to tphysmag@physiology.org.