News & Insights

#MentorHer at DP World – Empowering women in the shipping industry

Written by Unifeeder | Jan 19, 2022 8:41:46 AM

 

Svetlana Maydanova has been with Unifeeder since 2009 and is located in St. Petersburg. Besides many years of experience in Finance and Administration, she holds a Ph.D. from St. Petersburg Polytechnic University in enterprise architecture and digital technologies in logistics, which she defended in December 2020.

After having gained theoretical knowledge, Svetlana sought to combine it with practical skills, which the DP World mentoring program #MentorHer allowed her to do. 

MentorHer is available to all female employees across the DP World network. As Unifeeder is a DP World-owned company, this provides unique opportunities for all Unifeeder female employees. 

The program facilitates knowledge transfer with mentors who possess expertise and strength to inspire, motivate, and develop women to understand and accomplish their present and future vision and purpose.

Describing the outcome of the program, Svetlana says: “This was a chance for me to be involved in new IT projects and to apply my knowledge in practice. If you dream of constant development, this program is a good place to realize it.”

So far, the program has successfully been held four times. In 2021, there were involved 138 mentors and more than 200 mentees across the globe.

Svetlana’s experiences

The mentor and mentee are thoroughly matched based on various criteria to ensure the best matches, rewarding for both partners. Svetlana's mentor was Mohamed Absar, Head of Projects and Solutions at DP World, who is responsible for the back offices standardization.

During the mentoring program, Absar has provided significant support for Svetlana, consulting her on a wide range of topics. Moreover, he has appointed her to several IT projects, running for implementation now, meaning that her experience in administration of logistics and enterprise architecture has also turned out to be very beneficial for DP World.

For Svetlana, this has been a chance to receive practical experience in global IT projects and business processes. Moreover, this was a chance to meet new colleagues across DP World and to renew cooperation with many Unifeeder colleagues.

Thus, MentorHer both empowers women and supports business goals.

Svetlana has been invited to extend her program for another six months, meaning that after all, she will receive a year of practical experience in global IT projects. Meanwhile, she has already identified several areas for new scientific research.

Go to DP World to learn more about the #MentorHer program