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What is the One Mentoring Programme and how does it help people find mentors?
The One Mentoring Programme is a structured portal that connects mentors and mentees across the utilities industry — including people from entirely different organisations and lines of work. It provides access to unbiased support from someone with a completely different viewpoint, complementing the informal mentoring relationships that can develop naturally throughout a career.
Finding a mentor inside your own organisation is not always straightforward. You may not know who to ask, or the relationship risks feeling too close to your daily work to be truly candid. The One Mentoring Programme solves this by opening the search beyond organisational boundaries, across the whole utilities sector.
Both Sophia Goring, Head of Sustainability at Business Stream, and Karen Anderson, Executive Director of the Women's Utilities Network, describe it as the structured route to mentorship — a clear entry point for anyone who does not already have an informal mentoring relationship in place. As Goring highlighted in The Future of Utilities Podcast, she won the programme's Mentor of the Year award in 2024 and continues to support it actively.
A portal that crosses organisational lines — and brings a genuinely different perspective
The value of mentoring across organisations is specific: you get guidance from someone who carries none of the political or hierarchical weight of your own workplace. That distance is the point. It allows for honest conversations about obstacles, goals and confidence that might feel riskier with an internal colleague.
Naz Khanon, Head of People at Lane's Group and Mentor of the Year 2025, is another active figure in the programme — a signal that the One Mentoring Programme consistently produces mentors of genuine quality and commitment. The award itself reflects a recognition culture that encourages mentors to stay involved year after year, a dynamic explored further in this episode of The Future of Utilities Podcast.
The programme does not replace informal mentoring relationships — it sits alongside them. Someone may find an informal mentor through a network event or a professional connection, and separately use the One Mentoring Programme as a more formal, structured channel. The two approaches are designed to coexist, not compete.
From half a dozen mentors to over 100 women and allies — the network behind the programme
The One Mentoring Programme operates within a broader ecosystem built by the Women's Utilities Network, founded in 2018 by five women in the utilities sector who recognised they were often the only females in the room. Over eight years, that founding impulse has grown into something tangible.
At the Future Utilities conference, the contrast between years tells the story plainly: two years ago, the Women's Utilities Network event gathered half a dozen to a dozen mentors alongside a few mentees. At the most recent edition, well over 100 women and allies stood together networking and supporting one another. Anderson described this directly in The Future of Utilities Podcast as the living proof of what the network is there for.
The One Mentoring Programme is one of the concrete mechanisms driving that growth. It gives structure to the aspiration — turning the desire to mentor or be mentored into an actual match, across the full width of the utilities industry.
"Mentoring, for me, has given me a purpose. Seeing people build confidence, overcoming obstacles, they've set goals that they thought were impossible. Seeing them achieve those goals has been rewarding."
Karen Anderson — Executive Director, Women's Utilities Network.
Anderson has led the Women's Utilities Network for just over two years, overseeing a period of significant growth in both membership and industry visibility. She speaks regularly at major sector events, including the Future Utilities conference, where she engages directly with large audiences on gender diversity and inclusion in utilities. Her work sits at the intersection of structural network-building and the personal, purpose-driven impact that mentoring programmes like the One Mentoring Programme deliver on the ground. This perspective — and more — is captured in The Future of Utilities Podcast.
See also
How does mentoring help with imposter syndrome in the workplace?
Naz Khanon acknowledges that imposter syndrome is something many people suffer with, and that mentoring helps by constantly checking, improving and building confidence through structured, ongoing support — a theme discussed openly in The Future of Utilities Podcast.
What do mentors gain from mentoring relationships, beyond what mentees receive?
Both Naz Khanon and Sophia Goring emphasise that mentoring is a two-way relationship: mentors develop coaching skills and broaden their understanding through exposure to different perspectives and experiences, growing professionally alongside their mentees.
How did networking directly shape Sophia Goring's career path into sustainability?
Sophia Goring met a woman named Lindsay who worked for a social mobility charity called Career Ready while she was working in communications. That connection opened a door that redirected her career trajectory entirely toward sustainability.
Key takeaways
- The One Mentoring Programme is a cross-organisational portal: it connects mentors and mentees across the entire utilities sector, not just within a single employer.
- Its core value is perspective: being matched with someone from a completely different background or line of work produces genuinely unbiased guidance.
- The programme complements informal mentoring — the two coexist and address different needs at different career moments.
- Mentor of the Year winners in both 2024 (Sophia Goring) and 2025 (Naz Khanon) remain actively involved, reflecting a strong culture of sustained commitment within the programme.
This answer comes directly from the Women in Utilities Network episode of The Future of Utilities Podcast. Listen to the full conversation on Listenly.
Listen to the episode on Listenly