Pay It Forward Mentorship

You’re a member of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, and you co-chair its in-house council mentoring program. Why is mentorship so important to you?

That program in particular is very near and dear to my heart. When I first moved from a law firm to McKesson, I realized very quickly that it was a completely different role and that I needed some guidance. And I actually wasn’t a member of NAPABA before that.
And I reached out to them, and it was to a general mailbox, not sure who was going to see it. And someone emailed me back and said, “Oh, would you like to be paired up with this one very senior leader,” who had just retired as the CLO of a Fortune 500 company and was at the time either the president or the president-electorate of NAPABA. And I got so much out of that relationship. I mean, 14 years later, I still go to her when I’m trying to do—to work through sticky problems.

Who is this person, may I ask?

Sure. So her name is Wendy Shiba, she was the CLO at KB Home and is now retired and is just a giant in the Asian Pacific Islander legal community. So I got so much out of that experience that I wanted to give back and help run the program.
And that’s something that I’ve done now as a co-chair for about five years, and through that I have learned and met so many just amazing leaders who really blow me away with their generosity. So, every year, the number of people seeking mentors has increased. That really tells me that there’s a need in our community for it.
So every year, I’m reaching out to really busy people, people who are CLOs at places like Target or CBS or just big jobs to ask them, “Gosh, we have this person who’s looking for a mentor. I think you’d be a great fit. Would you be willing to spend some time with them?” And never once has anyone said no.

Nice.

And that's remarkable to me.

Yeah. So, the bounty that can come from a successful mentoring relationship is just incredibly rewarding. We all know that. Are there any boundaries that a mentor should be careful about overstepping?

Sure. So it’s something that I remind myself when working with someone, that my path or my experiences or my goals may be very different than that person. And so being that sounding board and providing perspective, but not overstepping to be instructive, I think can be a challenge. And it’s just something that I know I try to be very mindful of.