Gerry Laybourne wants organizations throughout the country to take steps to help mentor future women’s leaders.
The Oxygen Media CEO said the women’s-targeted network is launching “Oxygen Mentors: Bringing Along the Next Generation.” The public-affairs campaign will include both on-air interstitial elements and off-air components, plus an online mentoring program for young women, lead by executive coach Gloria Henn.
After a successful trek last year, “Mentor’s Walk: Creating the New Girls Network” -- in which executives and aspiring professional women walked together through New York’s Central Park -- the event will return for a similar saunter, this time April 28.
Plans are also underway for multicity walks in Denver and Colorado Springs, Colo., in August; Portland, Ore., later this year; and Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles in 2007.
Noting that Oxygen has previously engaged in such public-affairs programs as “Choose to Lead,” which asked women to step up in the worlds of business and politics, and “Build Your Own Business,” through which the network supplied funds and resources for entrepreneurial women, Laybourne said mentoring the next generation is “a bigger idea.”
For more on Oxygen Mentors, please see Mike Reynolds’ story on page 32 of Monday’s issue of Multichannel News.
