The power of mentoring and the startup bringing this power to a wider audience

“A mentor is someone who allows you to see the hope inside yourself.” — Oprah Winfrey

Without mentors, the world would be a very bleak place. Some of the greatest pioneers of all time once looked up to a mentor to help guide them and shape them into the leader they eventually became. For example, Mike Markkula, an angel investor in Apple in its early days, clearly had a profound impact on the tech icon.

In Job’s biography, he wrote of Markkula: “Mike really took me under his wing. His values were much aligned with mine. He emphasised that you should never start a company with the goal of getting rich. Your goal should be making something you believe in and making a company that will last.”

Fortunately, for modern day budding entrepreneurs, finding a mentor has never been easier. Online meetups are connecting bright minds, allowing for collaboration and the discussion of ideas like never before. For one startup, connecting enthusiastic individuals with willing mentors has become the driving force behind its business.

MentorCloud, an enterprise SaaS employee engagement platform focused on mentoring, announces the launch of MentorCloud Spark. This new solution is designed to spark intentional conversations between a company’s experienced and aspiring employees.  These conversations result in increased employee engagement, longevity and knowledge transfer.

MentorCloud is a cloud-based mentoring platform for enterprises to help their employees discover, connect and learn from experts inside their own organization. The company’s flagship solution, MentorCloud Enterprise, is already used by a number of prestigious global organizations that include Marriott International, YPO and EO to support peer-to-peer mentoring relationships.

With the launch of MentorCloud Spark, companies and organizations can now catalyze 1-on-1 mentoring sessions between senior executives and employees, as a way for them to test the waters, before the employees decide to engage in longer term mentoring relationships.

With tens of millions of baby boomers being replaced by millennials, and studies showing that 70% of employees are not engaged at work, companies need a modern and effective way to rapidly transfer institutional wisdom to the next generation of leaders. In addition to knowledge transfer, Spark helps with employee retention.

According to Deloitte Millennial Survey 2016, millennials are demonstrating lower employer loyalty, with two-thirds expressing a desire to leave their current organization by 2020.

“MentorCloud Spark is designed to help companies launch mentoring programs in an accelerated manner and realize rapid ROI,” said Ravishankar Gundlapalli, CEO and founder of MentorCloud. “The launch of MentorCloud Spark will further help to transfer mission-critical skills and institutional wisdom in large enterprises, which will in turn increase employee retention.”

Clearly, a lot can be learned from finding the right mentor, and thanks to MentorCloud, those eager to learn will have a new platform to quench their thirst for knowledge, working alongside some of the brightest minds.