Fintech firm Melio has launched a mentoring program for female developers that brings together highly experienced women with those who are just at the start of their careers, the company announced this week.
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The program, called MentorMe, includes a series of group and personal meetings, discussions, and networking.
Some 150 women from a variety of tech firms in Israel applied to participate as either a mentor or mentee, of whom 50 women were selected. Senior engineers were each assigned a junior engineer to mentor.
In addition to one-on-one meetings, each mentee will participate in meet-ups focusing on different topics that can help their professional and personal development as engineers. Every meet-up will feature an influential woman from the industry who will share their experiences and knowledge, and the list includes Karin Moscovici, a former VP of R&D at Riskified; Yael Karov, an entrepreneur and director of engineering at Google AI; and Inbal Orpaz, a journalist and founder of the #WomaninTech initiative.
According to Smadar Weizman, Melio's VP of People, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is a cross-company issue. "These are 'glasses' that we as HR managers and company leaders need to wear all the time – in job interviews, for recruitment, conversations in corridors, department meetings, training, promotions, termination of employment, salary updates, and more," Weizman said.
"We begin with a regular sampling of the gender balance (women account for about half of Melio's workforce) or examining where we work on the issue of minorities who are under-represented in the industry – this sampling also includes an examination of wage disparities in the process of surveying salaries, promotions, and participation in training with significant added value. We also make decisions, like recruiting women in advanced stages of pregnancy with the understanding that they will go on maternity leave soon, as we are interested in their skills for the long term."
Melio, which develops a B2B payment system, was founded by CEO Matan Bar, CTO Ilan Atias, and Ziv Paz in 2018, with headquarters in New York, an R&D center in Tel Aviv, and western US headquarters in Colorado. The company has raised $506 million to date.
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