Why Mentorship Lasts a Lifetime

Last month AIG’s early career professionals graduated from their two-year analyst program. We hire these high performing college graduates and early career professionals into an entry-level position, and then a subset of them rotates through different roles within their function or business unit every few months. Along the way, they learn the ins and outs of our business and get the chance to develop lasting relationships with their colleagues and managers, many of whom remain mentors for the duration of their AIG career and beyond.

I believe that this type of formal development program, and even more importantly, informal mentorships, can make the difference between success or failure and have a lasting impact.

I know this from personal experience. There are two people in my life who had a profound impact on my personal and professional development. Their ability to understand my concerns, provide direction when I needed it most, and believe in me when I was filled with self-doubt gave me the confidence to pursue an ambitious career path.

The first was Monty “Coach” Moss. Coach Moss was the Owner and Director of Camp Lenox in The Berkshires, the overnight summer camp that celebrated its 100th anniversary just last year. I first arrived at Lenox in the summer of 1970 at the age of 16. In that very first year at camp, he put me in charge of overseeing the Camp Olympics, a special event that took place in the first two weeks of the summer. 

The Olympics divided the entire camp into four “countries” and engaged every one of Camp Lenox’s roughly 200 campers and counselors. After a full day of track and field, swim meets and other competitions, the Camp Olympics concluded with a closing ceremony where Coach Moss traditionally made a speech at the closing ceremony. Except that year, he asked me to give the speech. I had never given a speech, let alone to an audience of over 200 people. After the shock wore off, I confessed that I was very nervous about this and had no idea what to say! 

Almost 50 years later, I still remember his reply as though it happened yesterday. He suggested that I “say what comes from the heart and you’ll do just great.” That may sound corny, but his advice helped me meet the challenge and it worked…the speech was roundly applauded (by an audience that, then and I suspect now, is notoriously supportive and friendly!). 

Coach Moss, his belief in me, and his message that night five decades ago have all had a significant impact on me throughout my career.

My other mentor was the man I worked for first at Beneficial Commercial Corp (BCC) and then at The Beneficial Insurance Group (BIG), both subsidiaries of what was then known as Beneficial Corporation. Fred Dawson was a larger-than-life figure who was the CEO of BIG. As a turnaround expert, he had successfully redirected Beneficial Corporation’s Banking and Credit Card subsidiaries. He was then asked to take on the role of CEO of BCC, a Leveraged Leasing operation, where I first came to work for him. After another successful turnaround at BCC, Fred was named CEO of BIG, Beneficial Corporation’s largest subsidiary other than the finance company. 

A short time after Fred took on the challenging assignment at BIG, we met and he said he was about to offer me the job opportunity of a lifetime. He asked me to join him at BIG and be the President of its many life, property casualty and reinsurance subsidiaries operating across the US, Canada, the UK, Bermuda and Australia. 

I was astounded by his offer and wasn’t at all convinced that I was up to the task. I was only 30 years old at the time, had been a lawyer for all of my brief career, and admittedly didn’t know very much about the insurance business. I wouldn’t even know where to start! But Fred saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself. From his perspective, he thought I had all the qualities he thought were necessary to be successful and he was willing to take a chance on me.

Under Fred’s leadership, Beneficial Insurance Group, which had been on the brink of disaster, lived to see another day and many of its operations were successfully sold. For me, that decision and the three years that followed were a springboard for the rest of my career. And as if that wasn’t enough, Fred would later go on to introduce me to my wife, Claire!

In looking back on Coach Moss and Fred Dawson, the thing I remember most is that they both believed in me, even when I didn’t believe in myself. To me, that’s what mentorship is.

Given the significant impact that mentorship has had on my life, and in the spirit of paying it forward, here are a few suggestions I would offer to our AIG graduates or other early career professionals looking for some guidance.

• Manage your own career development. You’ll likely find that many people throughout your career will feel compelled to guide you along the way. But waiting around for someone to take an interest in you leads to many missed opportunities to make connections. It’s your job to be proactive and pursue relationships at all levels that you think will benefit your career aspirations.
• Don’t focus on finding a mentor. Instead, focus on developing personal relationships. You will meet dozens, if not hundreds of new colleagues in those first few years of your working career. Take an interest in who they are and what they do, and particularly take the time to try to get to know the people whom you admire, think are trustworthy, and (most importantly) are good people.
• Ask for advice. Take LinkedIn for example. People are on here because they want to network with their peers and get advice that can help them move their career forward. So, take advantage. Find someone who has the career you want or who you think you can learn from and send them an InMail. In fact, I take personal InMails very seriously, and I try my best to reply if someone is looking for advice. There are a number of instances where I was so impressed by the person who reached out to me that I provided introductions that led to job opportunities for them.

I feel very fortunate to have had the career I have had, and I feel strongly that I would not be where I am today without the help of those who believed in me along the way. For those of you who are senior professionals, I am sure you feel similarly. I hope that you also take the time to help the more junior colleagues around you – to get to know them, to offer them advice, and, importantly, to give them new challenges. Remember –what you say or do to help a young professional can make a profound impact that can last a lifetime.