2017 mentees with Claude Faber (mentor), Rachel Gaessler (nyuko), Karin Schintgen (nyuko/House of Startups), Martin Guérin (nyuko), Carlo Thelen (Chamber of Commerce) and Patrick Wildgen (Ministry of Economy;
Credit: nyuko
On 7 December 2017, numerous entrepreneurs and other members of the business world attended the 2017 mentee presentation evening, as part of nyuko’s Business Mentoring scheme, at the Chamber of Commerce.
In his opening speech, the director general of the Chamber of Commerce, Carlo Thelen, expressed his delight with the extent to which the scheme’s entrepreneurs have embraced mentorship as a tool for running their businesses.
The Business Mentoring scheme continues to be popular, with 24 mentees for 2017, the same number as last year. Most are in the ICT sector, namely artificial intelligence, fintech and regtech, but there are also some from the more traditional areas of trade, services and hospitality and catering. The addition of a few new mentors this year’s total up to around fifty.
Launched in 2010 by the Chamber of Commerce, the Luxembourg Business Mentoring programme was inspired by the methods developed by the Fondation de l’Entrepreneurship in Canada. The system brings together a young entrepreneur (mentee) and an experienced business director (mentor) over a period of six to eighteen months.
The mentee presentation evening allowed various mentees to share their experiences on the scheme. For instace, Martine Jungers, joint director of the family company, Buedemleër, took part in an 18-month mentorship after taking over the family business with her brother in 2012. She said: "the mentorship experience is above all a journey of personal development, helped by someone more experienced and capable of asking the right questions without necessarily giving or even knowing the answers to these themselves."
Seven years on, the programme has instilled improvements in managerial and leadership capabilities in its mentees and the participating businesses have an 80% survival rate. In 2015, Business Mentoring moved to the nyuko offices.
The recently elected president of nyuko and CEO of the House of Start-ups, Karin Schintgen, closed the evening with a few words outlining the aims of this expansion project and the move for nyuko and Business Mentoring into their new offices. She stated: "nyuko is a real asset to the House of Start-ups and its main incubators, the Luxembourg House of Financial Technology and the Luxembourg City Incubator."
The Business Mentoring program has also undergone a makeover with a new logo and website and a more colourful corporate identity.
