Latest / The Promotion Memo with Fexingo: Getting Visibility, Sponsors, and Executive Presence / How to Get Promoted by Owning a Reverse Mentor Program
Transcript
- Lucas: So there's this story from a large financial services firm — think one of the big banks — where a mid-level VP in their risk division got promoted to managing director. And the vehicle wasn't a high-profile project or a revenue number. It was a reverse mentoring program she designed and ran for eighteen months. Luna: Reverse mentoring — where the junior person mentors the senior one. That's been a buzzword for a while, but I don't hear many stories about someone actually getting promoted off the back of it. Lucas: Exactly. And that's what makes this worth unpacking. Her name was Priya — I'm changing it — and she was a VP in operational risk, reporting up through a fairly siloed chain. She noticed that the executive committee had a blind spot around generative AI and its implications for their risk models. They knew it was coming, but they didn't have anyone inside who could translate the technical side into business language. Luna: So she saw a gap and realized she could fill it, but she wasn't the technical expert herself. Lucas: Right. She was a risk manager, not an AI engineer. But she knew the junior analysts and associates in her division — some of them were using these tools in their day-to-day work. So she pitched a six-month pilot to the head of risk: pair each member of the executive committee with an early-career employee who would spend one hour a month showing them what they were actually doing with these models. Luna: And the exec committee signed off on that? That feels like a tough sell. Lucas: It was a tough sell, and she did it the right way. She didn't just say 'let's do reverse mentoring.' She wrote a one-page memo that framed it as a risk management issue. She said, 'Our competitors are moving faster on AI adoption. Our regulators will start asking us to explain our models. The quickest way to build internal fluency is to have the people who actually use these tools teach the decision-makers.' She tied it to a concrete business pain point. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the first lesson. If you pitch a program like this as a feel-good mentorship initiative, it's easy to deprioritize. If you pitch it as a strategic response to a regulatory or competitive gap, it gets attention. The pilot launched with four executive members and four junior mentors — all analysts or associates, averaging about two years out of college. Luna: What did the actual sessions look like? Lucas: Very structured. Priya created a simple agenda template for each session. First fifteen minutes: the junior mentor would show a specific tool or workflow they were using — maybe a Python script for automating a report, or a large language model they'd prompted to summarize regulatory changes. Next twenty minutes: they'd discuss implications for the executive's area. Last ten minutes: the executive would ask questions. No slides, no formal presentations, just a conversation. Luna: So it was real-time, practical, and low-ego. The junior person is the expert in that room. Lucas: Exactly. And that changed the power dynamic. One of the executives later said it was the first time in years they'd felt genuinely uncomfortable — in a good way — because they didn't know the answers. And that discomfort drove action. Within three months, the risk committee had commissioned an internal audit of their AI models, which was something they'd been kicking down the road. Luna: So Priya's program had a measurable impact on the firm's operations. That's going to get noticed. Lucas: It did. But here's the key: she didn't just create the program and hand it off. She ran it herself. She recruited the junior mentors, trained them on how to communicate with senior leaders, facilitated the sessions, and collected feedback after each one. She wrote a quarterly summary for the chief risk officer that highlighted what the executives were learning and what actions had come out of the conversations. Luna: So she was essentially managing a small internal consultancy. Lucas: Exactly. And by the end of the first year, she had a portfolio of evidence: testimonials from four executives, two new policies that the program had influenced, and a clear narrative about how she'd built organizational capability. When promotion season came around, she had sponsors at the table — literally, because the executives she'd worked with were on the promotion committee. Luna: That's the sponsorship piece. They saw her in action, not just her output. Lucas: Right. She wasn't just managing a program; she was demonstrating strategic thinking, cross-functional influence, and the ability to identify and close a gap before it became a crisis. Those are exactly the behaviors that get someone moved from VP to managing director. Luna: What about the junior mentors? Did they get anything out of it beyond the networking? Lucas: According to Priya's own write-up, three of the four were promoted within the next year. The exposure to senior leadership and the chance to demonstrate expertise in a low-stakes environment accelerated their visibility. One analyst told her it was the first time a managing director had asked for their opinion on something substantive. Luna: That's a huge retention tool. You've basically created a talent pipeline. Lucas: And that's what made the program sustainable. When Priya got promoted, the firm institutionalized the program across the risk division. It's now a standard part of their leadership development curriculum. She left behind a playbook. Luna: So for someone listening who wants to try something similar — what are the first steps? Lucas: First, identify a knowledge gap that actually matters to the people above you. Not a general 'they should learn about technology,' but a specific, urgent gap. Maybe it's understanding how a new regulation affects a product line, or how a competitor's pricing model works. Second, find the junior people who already have that knowledge. Third, write a one-page proposal that frames the program as solving a business problem, not as a development exercise. Luna: And you need at least one executive willing to be the first participant. That's your proof of concept. Lucas: Exactly. Priya started with the chief risk officer, who she already had a decent relationship with. He agreed to be the guinea pig, and after one session, he was the one who suggested expanding it to the rest of the committee. Once you have that internal champion, the rest is execution. Luna: Speaking of execution — if you're finding this episode useful, say, if it's given you one idea you might actually try, that's the kind of moment where listener support really matters. We keep this show ad-free, and the only reason we can do that is because people who get value from it occasionally toss a coffee our way. If today was worth a coffee to you, that's the link — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Lucas: Completely agree. And it's a small thing that makes a big difference for us. Anyway — back to the structure. Once you have the program running, you have to document everything. Priya kept a simple spreadsheet of topics covered, actions taken, and feedback. That became her promotion packet. Luna: So the documentation was the proof that she'd created organizational value beyond her day job. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the meta-lesson. Reverse mentoring is one tactic, but the underlying principle is bigger: look for places where the organization has a blind spot that you can help fix, even if it's not in your job description. Build a bridge between the people who have the knowledge and the people who need it. Then take ownership of that bridge. Luna: I think the risk people worry about is that it looks like self-promotion or that you're stepping on toes. How do you avoid that? Lucas: You have to be humble in the framing. Priya didn't say 'I'm going to teach the executives.' She said 'our junior talent has insights that could help the committee make better decisions.' She positioned herself as the facilitator, not the expert. That made it easier for people to say yes. And when the results came in, she let the metrics speak for themselves. Luna: I also think it helps that she wasn't trying to fix everything. She focused on one specific gap — AI risk fluency — and did it well. Lucas: That's the key. Don't propose a general 'reverse mentoring program' for the whole company. Find one department, one executive, one topic. Prove it works. Then scale. That's how you get promoted — not by having a great idea, but by turning a great idea into a repeatable result that people can point to. Luna: And then you have a story to tell at promotion time. Lucas: Exactly. Priya's narrative wasn't 'I ran a program.' It was 'I identified a gap that could cost us millions in regulatory fines, built a solution that closed that gap in six months, and created a model that the division now uses as standard practice.' That's the difference between activity and impact. Luna: Alright, I'm sold. I'm going to look for a knowledge gap in my own team this week. See if I can find a Priya of my own. Lucas: Do it. And if you do, let us know how it goes.