I Like Networking is a female-led organisation working to create a more inclusive industry where diverse voices are represented. This is tackled practically through mentoring programmes designed to help marginalised individuals progress in their careers and influence systemic change within organisations. The programme activity is targeted at women and non-binary individuals aged 18+, but I Like Networking’s wider resources are open to anyone.
The programmes connect mentees with mentors who provide guidance, support, and opportunities for career advancement. There is a strong emphasis on providing diverse voices and experiences in both the mentor and mentee roles and a strong focus on salary transparency and creating entry-level roles that truly support individuals without prior experience. In the past three years, the organisation has worked with more than 200 hand-selected mentors and last year, received over 1,000 applications from prospective mentees.
We interviewed Isabel Sachs, Founder and Director of I Like Networking to learn more about her human-based approach to EDI and why she chose not to put an age limit on who can access the mentor programmes. We also find out more about why her ultimate goal is that one day, I Like Networking won’t need to exist at all and why she believes it’s important for all EDI work to start from within.
What were your motivations for starting I Like Networking?
Part of my motivation is lived experience. I Like Networking was started to focus on women and non-binary people in their Creative Industries and within that, we try to support those who have less access to those industries. This could be for a variety of reasons—socio-economic factors, geographical barriers, ethnicities, disabilities and so on. Although, as a caveat, we're not currently able to support every type of disability because we're a very small organisation but we're working towards it.
One of the drivers was some anecdotal evidence on the first lockdown in 2020. I was one of the freelancers who lost their jobs and had no support from the government—no support from anyone. I saw it happening around me with my peers and colleagues. As it extended, I saw it was hitting more women than men. I thought the best thing I could do, stuck at home, was to try and make something that would support other people. That's how I Like Networking got started.
How do you embed those motivations in your company strategy?
The ethos of I Like Networking has been present in my career at large as a producer, as an entrepreneur, and as a manager. It is the idea that we have the responsibility to bring others along on the journey and open doors for other people. I grew up in that way in the industry—with barriers, of course, but I tried, as much as I could, to surround myself with people who thought differently.
One thing that I always think is that if we're going to do this, we need to start from within. Everything we try to do with I Like Networking is about it being a platform for a community and transparency, and that's embedded in a variety of ways. So, whenever we work with freelancers or contractors, we try to ensure they come from a variety of places and that we're working mainly with women and marginalised genders. Our Advisory Board is also diverse in terms of backgrounds, stories, and narratives, so we can represent people from different fields and communities.
Another really important thing is that if we're going to talk about diversity of voices, then our speakers and our mentors need to be diverse too. People identify with people; people identify with people who had similar journeys or similar struggles to them. I think it's important that we try as much as we can to have a variety of voices informing our work at all levels so that we're reaching those communities in an authentic way.
We do a lot of surveys and we try to listen to people as much as we can. I read all the reports that come out and we share some of the top data so people actually know what's happening. We do this because yes, of course, we do important work with I Like Networking but it's palliative because there are some systemic issues people can’t change on their own. That's why communities and networks are so important.
What is the main problem you're seeking to address through your mentoring initiatives?
It's the problem of access and progression in the Creative Industries for underrepresented talent. Obviously, underrepresented can mean different things depending on where you are in the world or even in the UK.
There's lots of data on the benefit of mentoring in terms of career progression but there's less data on how mentors benefit and how they can then become agents of change within their organisations. I'd like there to be more data available about that. I think mentoring is the best way to connect with people, not job roles. Most of the time, when you're going through an issue, it's not really about someone doing the work for you. It's more about having someone who will open the door or help you think in a slightly different way.
To support people on our programmes further, all of our mentors are asked to open their mentee to others in their network and to other opportunities such as jobs and training. I've been in the Creative Industries for 20 years and it's always very vertical in the way things happen. It's always about who you know and the opportunities aren't clearly offered. I think if all organisations and all people in positions of leadership could see they have a responsibility to support others by thinking of strategies and introducing them to people, we would see a big change across the system.
Who is your mentoring aiming to support and why?
Our programme is for women and non-binary individuals aged 18 and over. We don't have an age limit because in my personal experience and what I've seen with I Like Networking, when women are getting somewhere with their careers, they drop out because they have kids or have to care for relatives. Also, the salaries in the Creative Industries are often really low so it becomes not worth it for them to work, so they drop out of the workforce. We also don't want to limit people by age because people may be refugees or migrants and starting their careers from scratch.
Ageism is a huge issue I think. If we don't support women who have had the experience to continue to progress in their careers, how are we going to make change? We need diverse people at the top.
As a small organisation, we share our resources with anyone and we make sure our events are as open as possible. We have nothing against men, obviously—we just don't have expertise there. We're an organisation led by women and this is the reality we know, so we feel more comfortable supporting this community because it's what we have data on and what we understand. We have CIS, white, privileged men who have been mentors and have been some of our mentees' favourite mentors and speakers. We want as many allies as possible.
What are some of the key elements of the mentoring programme?
We asked for four sessions from the mentors, ideally one every 4-6 weeks because we found that a shorter time frame helps people concentrate and be more particular about their goals. The idea is that the mentees come out of the programme knowing how to go after their goals, feeling more secure in their path and also feeling supported by people they can reach out to.
Most of the meetings are online because we don't always have mentors and mentees in the same location. Plus, some people have difficulty of access. It's totally up to the mentors and the mentees—there's lots of agency on both sides.
Once they're paired, we train the mentors and the mentees. We offer tools, training and check-in calls. We also put the mentors and the mentees together in groups for them to meet one another, so there's peer-to-peer support across both levels. That's really important because I don't think you should just be mentored by senior people. Your peers are some of the most important connections you're going to have.
So, we have this big community. They share jobs and opportunities, they ask questions and for them, it's also a nice way to work with one another and build their networks.
Looking to the future, what are your plans and goals for I Like Networking moving forward?
We started with these mentoring programmes, which have been incredibly beneficial and impactful—but they've almost worked too well because now we have a waitlist of mentors and last time, we had over 1,000 applications. As a one-person, part-time organisation, we're just not able to pair 1,000 people with mentors one-to-one.
So, the challenge now is to figure out if that's still the best model going forward to develop and deliver our mission. I want to make sure we can scale our impact without losing the quality because I think so far, that has been one of our key differentiators. We have really talented mentors and we work really hard on the selection. It's very human-based but with 1,000 applications, bias and human mistakes will come into play, we need to be mindful of this.
Also, we'll be looking into investment, more international connections and experimenting with how we share our content. Eventually, I would love I Like Networking to be the go-to career platform for the Creative Industries in the UK and hopefully in the US because that's our second market. We can learn from mentors from all over the world.
I guess my biggest goal is for I Like Networking to not be necessary anymore because all the problems will be solved!
If you had to give one piece of key advice or learning to another organisation considering setting up mentoring, what would it be?
I would say consider what you want to achieve and ask the people in your community and in your company what it is they need so that you are doing it with them. Mentoring is a collective engagement, so you need to make sure that you're actually listening to people's needs so it's something sourced together in some capacity. You need to have buy-in from people. If they're not willing to do it, they're not going to be good mentors or mentees. Also, don't do it from the top down because I don't know if that would work.
What do you believe the risks are of not addressing EDI in the Creative Industries?
The Creative Industries are the industry of representation. Everything the Creative Industries do shapes perception, shapes society, shapes what we see, what we think, what we hear. If you only have one story, you get a lot of bad results. Also, without diversity of backgrounds, you don't get diversity of thought and without that, you just don't get innovation—and innovation is driving the world.
For information about I Like Networking events and opportunities or to tap into their hub of free enriching resources, visit www.ilikenetworking.uk.
You can also read the latest I Like Networking impact report here.
