The Fortune-U.S. Department of State Global Women’s Mentoring Program pairs international businesswomen at the crossroads of their leadership paths, with top American female executives – Fortune’s Most Powerful Women.
The program directly supports the United States’ goal of advancing women’s efforts to become financially independent, educate their children, and improve their communities.
Participants are selected by USA Embassies in different countries around the world, together with the US State Department. Sandra Ankobiah was chosen from Ghana to participate in the program.
Over the past eleven years, the program has connected more than 280 women from more than 50 countries and territories with executive women mentors from the Fortune Most Powerful Women community, resulting in the expansion of professional networks and skill development opportunities for the emerging leaders. This public-private partnership brings emerging women leaders from around the world to the United States for a four-week mentoring program.
Fortune’s Most Powerful Women mentors include Women CEOs from some of America’s most internationally recognized and prestigious companies such as IBM, Goldman Sachs, Johnson & Johnson, Airbnb, The Dow Chemical Company, Time Inc., and other well-known, U.S.-based companies.
The program provides participants with unique opportunities to develop their management and business skills while gaining experience in the U.S. business and non-profit environment. Past participants have expanded their businesses, become involved in political campaigns in their home countries, won the Goldman Sachs and Fortune Global Women Leaders Award, and been nominated for the CNN Heroes awards.
Past participants continue to work toward positive outcomes for women within their sectors and use their networks and influence to generate lasting change in their communities. Now in its 12th year, the 2017 program includes 21 participants from 15 countries around the world.
This program seeks to equip emerging international women leaders with critical business and leadership skills, provide them with networking opportunities and access to American and international women business leaders, enable the sharing of best practices, and inspire them to use their newly acquired skills and knowledge to “pay it forward” in their own communities. This program is a public private partnership between the U.S. Department of State and Fortune’s Most Powerful Women, with Vital Voices Global Partnership as the implementing partner.
The Ghanaian representative is a lawyer, entrepreneur and a philanthropist. She studied International and Commercial Law, specialising in World Trade, from the University of Buckingham (LLB, LLM) between 2005 and 2009. She returned to Ghana and studied at the Ghana School of Law from 2010 to 2012.
