2026 Mentorship Program Session #1 Recap
Building Your Brand: Telling Your Story and Building Your Status
The Women in Cleantech and Sustainability (WCS) Mentorship Program officially launched its 10th cohort cycle following a successful kickoff event on January 30th, 2026. This year we were able to welcome 55 mentorship pairs into the program due to the gracious support of returning and new mentors helping us reach this incredible achievement. Ever since the program’s founding in 2017, this community has steadily grown in size and maintained its mission to serve as a stepping point for women professionals wanting to advance or transition their careers into cleantech and sustainability.
The first session for this year’s program was about building your brand under a leadership lens rather than a marketing one. Oftentimes women in the workplace are told to keep their heads down and stay focused on their work. However, that mindset doesn’t always translate to opportunity and visibility.
The purpose of this workshop can be summarized under three major objectives. The first being why telling your story is critical to building status, whether we like it or not. The second is on how to talk about your accomplishments and ambitions in ways that build respect and warmth. The third being how small, everyday choices, such as emails, updates, and casual conversations, can quietly shape your leadership brand over time. In short, the end goal is to be more intentional and clear with ourselves.
To help contextualize this session, WCS Volunteer Committee Chair, Julie Busch, was invited to share her career insights and perspective through the following questions.
Q1: Looking back, was there a moment in your career when you realized that doing great work wasn’t enough, that you actually had to be more intentional about making your work visible?
A1: Yes, there was a moment that Julie vividly remembered from when she was younger and this moment is directly tied to one of the women leaders in her company at the time. Julie recalled that when she saw this woman operate, her whole professional life changed afterwards. Through this woman’s work ethic, she understood what it took to be a leader. Julie attributes this woman’s presentation skills, the manner in which she carried herself throughout the company, and the way she communicated with people truly left an impact on her. This individual owned the room and it made Julie reflect on how important presentation skills can be over the work itself.
Q2: From your perspective as a board member, what signals help you quickly understand someone’s impact or leadership potential, especially when you don’t work with them day to day?
A2: As part of her role at WCS, Julie is vetting for other board candidates on a weekly basis. To help narrow down her options, Julie looks towards a specific skillset or the experience an individual has. She is primarily looking for someone that has formally held leadership positions. They have to demonstrate that they led a team and are able to articulate their story of what they led. Julie connected this idea back to the story she previously shared to emphasize the importance of communication skills, especially when working in a large group. The ability to communicate and showcase builder skills are the stepping stones to a leader’s potential.
Q3: Many women worry about crossing the line into “bragging.” How do you personally share your accomplishments or advocate for your work while still building trust and relationships?
A3: Julie tries to stir away from bragging and instead states that it’s really important to know your business. She emphasized the value of knowing your subject matter and being an expert in what you do. However, equally important is the ability to communicate and demonstrate your leadership so that you’re the one people seek out for support.
If you don’t tell your story, no one else will.
The rest of this session was led by none other than Stefanie Padgett, the WCS Mentorship Program’s Director. Using themes that are highlighted in Alison Fragale’s book, “Likeable Badass”, Stefanie facilitated this discussion by highlighting how telling your story impacts other aspects of your life, your opportunities, your influence, and how others experience your leadership.
Your story is not necessarily your life story or elevator pitch, but rather your visibility. Your story is everything that originates with you which is to say that every interaction you have, regardless of length, is reinforcing a story about who you are and what you bring. In short, they are branding moments.
This framework comes from Alison Fragale’s research, and her conclusion is that status is built on two things: assertiveness (competence, confidence, ambition) and warmth (generosity, care, trust).
Many women are taught, either explicitly or implicitly, to protect warmth at all costs. This can manifest itself in different ways such as minimizing your voice or making yourself smaller so as not to make others uncomfortable. However, you do not have to choose one over the other as many great leaders exhibit both qualities.
There is a societal fear that self-promotion is obnoxious and self centered. However, Stefanie argued that the research shows the opposite is true, when self-promotion is done intentionally. Strategic self-promotion builds credibility and likability. The problem is not self-promotion. The problem is that no one taught us how to do it well. At this point in time, the participants were asked how self-promotion makes them feel. Many expressed feelings of awkwardness, embarrassment, self-doubt, uncertainty, and more.
Halfway through the session, the group discussed an example from Fragale’s book where a woman named Meg described a moment where she understood the importance of taking control of the narrative of your story by comparison to her coworker. Similarly, a mentor of the program, Ashleigh Dawson, shared how she had to quickly understand the need to brag about herself due to a rigorous hiring opportunity. In her words, people can’t see what you’re doing unless you tell them.
In the second half of the workshop, participants were shown how they could tell a stronger story going forward. In the end, how you say it matters. In Fragale’s book, there is a two step formula one could follow, where you would 1). State the win clearly and 2). Add a benefit-to-others line. Yet this idea can be simplified down to having the confidence to speak your truth and the contribution you have added. This is a skill to be practiced, not a personality trait.
After returning from the second breakout session, where the group was asked to practice this skill, a mentee of the program, Sophia Ladyzhets, expressed how helpful she found this practice since before she would minimize her efforts at work so as not to appear boastful but now going forward she plans to use these moments to help make herself more visible to her leadership and showcase her skillset.
To close out the session, the group was tasked with the challenge to work on this skill so that they build this muscle over time. They could lean on their mentor or mentee for support but also work with the cohort and their community at large.
The mentorship program is off to a great start, and we hope the WCS community is as excited as the program committee to see this cohort flourish in their professional growth. Stay tuned for more updates!
For more information about the Mentorship Program, visit our page: https://www.womenincleantechsustainability.org/mentorship/
If you’re interested in being involved in the 2027 WCS Mentorship Program, contact us here: careerdev@womencleantechsustainability.org
