The Mentor's Gift

The Mentor's Gift: One of America's Foremost Arts Leaders Draws Lessons from Her Storied Career is the first professional memoir to be structured around developing and defining the concept of mentorship through lived experience. The work of one of America's most respected arts professionals, it bequeaths to the reader the lessons learned during more than four decades being mentored by corporate CEOs, psychologists, art consultants, artists, financial and legal experts, and even a "corporate shaman." As a work of practical guidance, the book is indispensable to the professional, at any career stage, who wants to learn how to choose a mentor, how to use and make the most of a mentor, and how to sustain a mentoring relationship. The Mentor's Gift concludes with the author's reflections on twenty-five years of being a mentor to arts and culture professionals, a small business owner, a law student, media and tech experts, and on-air talent. It answers the question, how do I decide to accept a mentee? The Mentor's Gift achieves all this through memoir-style narrative dramatic enough for the field of opera, where the author spent nearly three decades as an opera stage director. These are stories of perseverance, artistic inspiration, travel, and the challenge of working with international stars. Drawing on a career that spanned the US and Canada, coast to coast, along with New Zealand and Israel, the drama only deepens as the author transitions into leading arts organizations, where she must face nearly insurmountable financial obstacles, bankruptcies, mergers, demanding and ego-driven board members, competitors, and bullying stakeholders. Trying to please donors and audiences, dance around politicians, and innovate, using the performing arts to pose questions of justice, the author reveals for the reader the indispensable nature of mentorship.