GRIT EDITION THREE - Flipbook - Page 6
20
20
NEXT LEADERS
CLASS OF 2020
MENTORSHIP IS
THE SPARK FOR
GREAT LEADERSHIP
AND GROWTH
By: Jennifer Arnold, Co-founder & CEO,
MinervaAI; Next AI - Toronto
Jennifer is a veteran of the Anti-Money
Laundering (AML) and Anti-Terrorist
Financing industry, working at two
of Canada’s largest banks before setting
out out on her own to build MinervaAI
alongside co-founder Damian Tran.
MinervaAI predicts who poses money laundering and terrorist financing risk to banks.
They provide automated, accurate and audit-proof anti-money laundering investigations at a fraction of the cost of compliance.
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GRIT
A
fter meeting Laura Curtis Ferrara,
Scotiabank’s Global Chief Marketing Officer, through NEXT’s mentor
matching program, I have gained
wisdom and skills that will totally
help my venture succeed in the long run. I now appreciate that finding the perfect mentor is a bit
of an art, so here I’ll share some advice when it
comes to finding a great mentor and getting the
most out of this relationship:
1. Find a mentor who fills gaps in your skillset
For me, meeting Laura was kind of love at first
sight. We had our initial phone call and spoke for
about an hour, maybe an hour and a half. From
an entrepreneur’s perspective, it was everything
that I needed because she filled a gap in my skill
set – marketing. Even though she came in with
some trepidation around our relationship because
she recognized the complexities and nuance within the anti-money laundering (AML) space, Laura
was absolutely the perfect person. Her talent and
belief in the richness of storytelling really was an
eye opener for me – I still have tons of work to
do there. We’ve already gotten into the richness
of the name of my venture, MinervaAI, and the opportunities for storytelling there.
2. Find someone who “gets you” and can help
tell your story
My primary learning from Laura revolves
around this notion of storytelling and knowing
who you are. If you know who you are, the problem that you’re solving and the greater calling of
what you’re serving, you deliver as a founder. The
AML community is divided into two camps: true
believers, of which I’m a part of, and those who
treat it as a “tick box” exercise. There’s a lot to be
leveraged in the storytelling and value creation
around being a true believer, keeping bad money
out of the system and safeguarding our financial
system. Ultimately, everything comes back to your
story and knowing in your heart of hearts who you
are and who you serve as an organization.
3. Just ASK
Your mentor is not psychic. You have to ask the
question if there’s something you’d like to know. I
think people often get frightened and intimidated.
Admittedly, I started out that way. But, you really
do just have to be candid with your mentor and
they’ll tell you if they can help you or not.
EXTRA CREDIT
Learn more about Jennifer and
Laura’s story on LaunchPod
Once I realized that Jen
had built a very specific
solution to a very clear
problem, then our conversations really focused on storytelling. It was very clear to me that Jen is
her own best marketing - she crystallizes the issue and is able to quickly move
from problem to solution-set. Jen goes
beyond the value-proposition and tells
wonderful human stories about how
many people MinervaAI can help.”
- LAURA CURTIS FERRERA
Global Chief Marketing Officer, Scotiabank
is a proud supporter of NEXT
GRIT
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