Fourteen Years of Marketing Mentorship
On October 2nd 2023, AMA Toronto welcomed a large crowd of senior marketers at IBM Canada’s downtown Toronto offices for a reception kicking off the 14th season of Mentor Exchange, one of AMA Toronto’s 3 leadership development programs boasting over 700 graduates to date. The program bills itself as the longest running & largest mentorship program of its kind across North America
This year the program paired up over 40 pairs of mid to senior level marketers with some of the most experienced marketing and advertising leaders in the country.
The program was originally formed as an extension of Canada’s Marketing Hall of Legends (CMHOL). The Legends program at the time was a celebratory gala honouring marketing luminaries, but was not really serving the core membership of the AMA, the persona they refer to as the “marketer on the rise”. Creating a mentorship program seemed like a natural way to extend the impact of CMHOL, and at the same time leant itself to supporting a core brand pillar of CMHOL – ‘Building Business Excellence’.
It’s apropos that as CMHOL enters it’s 20th anniversary, Mentor Exchange welcomed 15 inducted legends to join the already impressive roster of Alumni Mentors, many of whom have been mentors since the program inception.
For the past decade, Mentor Exchange has been co-chaired by David Kincaid, Founder of Level5 (and an inducted Legend) and Craig Lund, President of Marketing Talent Inc.. Lund introduced Nat Korol, Co-founder of Hyphen Co, as the new Program Director for the Mentor Exchange program. The appointment will see Lund move away from operational management of Mentor Exchange and into providing strategic support for all AMA Toronto leadership development programs which they refer to as the Leadership Excellence Portfolio. The portfolio includes a junior Mentorship offering for young professionals 24-30 years of age called Career Accelerator, as well as an Executive Coaching offering billed as one of the most affordable programs of its kind across North America.
Mentee’s of the program will receive a 9 month 1 on 1 mentorship with an assigned mentor. In addition to the mentorship meetings, they will receive a 1 year AMA Membership, access to 3 exclusive program events including a welcome reception, a winter cocktail event, and a summer graduation event. A half day of education is provided by Schulich ExecEd and includes a Certificate of completion. The program takes enrollment between June & August of each year.
