There is a difference between being a mentor and being a sponsor. I spent a long time confusing the two.
A mentor gives guidance. A sponsor creates opportunity. They are not the same thing, and for a long time I thought doing one well was enough. What I came to understand, slowly and through specific moments, is that guidance without opportunity can feel like support on the surface while quietly reinforcing the very thing it is trying to change.
Two moments in particular shaped how I think about this.
The Designer Who Wanted to Be a Product Manager
One of the designers I worked with had been thinking for a while about moving into Product Management. She had raised it with me a few times. She was talented, ambitious, and curious about whether her instincts for problem-solving translated into a different kind of role.
What I did not know until later was that she had interpreted my silence on the subject as scepticism. She had started to wonder whether I believed she was capable of making the transition, or whether I was quietly steering her back toward design because it was easier for me.
When that came to the surface, I did not try to reassure her with words. I arranged for her to interview for an open Product Management role within the organisation. Not as a formality. As a real process, evaluated exactly as any external candidate would be, with honest feedback on what she did well and what she would need to develop.
She did not get the role. But what she got from the process was worth more than the role itself: a clear and evidence-based picture of where her strengths were and what gaps existed between where she was and where she wanted to go. The feedback was specific. It named things she already suspected and things she had not seen clearly before.
Her perception of me changed after that conversation. Not because I had suddenly become a better manager, but because the process had demonstrated something that reassurance alone could not: that I was willing to put her in a real room with real stakes and let her find out for herself.
Her direction shifted. She went on to pursue a postgraduate programme in Strategy and Innovation, a path that took both her analytical instincts and her broader curiosity seriously. I think about that often. The most valuable thing I did in that situation was not advise her. It was get out of the way long enough for her to learn something true about herself.
The Presentation She Needed to Give Herself
The second moment was quieter but in some ways more instructive.
A technical team member came to me before an important presentation and asked whether I could present their work instead. They had built something they were proud of. They knew the material deeply. But they felt I would explain it better. They trusted my ability to communicate their work more than they trusted their own.
I said no. Not harshly. But clearly.
What I offered instead was time before the presentation to go through it together. We talked about how to frame the work, how to anticipate questions, how to stand behind what they had built with the same confidence they felt when they were building it. The goal was not to make them a better presenter in the abstract. It was to help them walk into that specific room and feel like the right person to be there.
They presented. It went well. And I think it mattered in a way that a polished presentation from me never could have, because it was theirs.
The instinct to step in and do something better than someone else can do it in this moment is a trap that looks like helpfulness. What it actually does is confirm the belief that they are not quite ready yet. Sponsorship means using your position to create the room. Then stepping back so someone else can fill it.
Why This Matters
Women in technology are often rich in mentors and poor in sponsors. People who give advice are relatively plentiful. People who use their own credibility and access to create opportunities for someone else are rarer.
The difference shows up in promotions, in visibility, in who gets invited into certain rooms. A mentor can help you prepare for an opportunity. Only a sponsor can help make the opportunity real.
I do not think sponsorship requires seniority. It requires paying attention to who is capable and who is invisible, and being willing to bridge that gap, whether by arranging an interview, declining to speak on someone else's behalf, or simply saying in a room full of decision-makers: she should be in this conversation.
The goal, always, has been to help people become confident enough that they no longer need someone else to speak on their behalf. That is not a quick outcome. But it is the only one that lasts.