Unlock Her Potential Is What Women Of Color Actually Need To Shatter The Glass Ceiling

Storyteller, screenwriter, and author Sophia Chang (left)

Unlock Her Potential, a mentorship program, that helps women of color unlock their potential

We’re bright, capable, and consistently undervalued

Black and brown women should not be left to tread the choppy waters of our careers alone. And frankly, effective mentorship looks different for us than it does for Chad in accounting. We need access to all of the insider secrets that propel our white counterparts to promotions and raises. For this reason, screenwriter and author Sophia Chang, founded Unlock Her Potential in 2020, to address the lack of mentorship amongst women of color ages 18 and up.

“Our goal is to see more of us ascend to positions of power that grant us the leverage of making decisions that will impact our community. We want more of us in the C-suites calling shots,” says Chang.

Chang experienced the power of professional guidance after building a relationship with her mentor Michael Ostin, former president of A&R at Warner Brothers Records and former President of Dreamworks Records, whom she met in the late ’80s during the budding stages of her career.

It was through this relationship that she was able to actualize her own path. “Mentorship is deeply meaningful to success because it helps us shape our thoughts around our identity, value, and direction,” says Chang. Along with providing her with a deeper understanding of herself, her mentor was able to present opportunities that she might not have had otherwise.

It was important for Chang to build a program that included male mentors so they could share some of the privileges they experience just by existing in a professional space. “I think for white men, mentorship comes about organically because most industries are built by, populated by, and sustained for them. Therefore, they’re naturally welcomed into the rooms and integrated into the conversations. It’s more difficult for women of color because we are not the default, like whiteness is,” Chang said. She’s not wrong.

Throughout industries, women of color often struggle with demystifying what is often referred to as “the process” because of a difference in cultural norms and language. This ultimately makes it difficult to connect with individuals who might be able to guide them, Chang tells me. In the program, she pairs women with established individuals (our team found out about the program because HuffPost’s editor-in-chief, Danielle Belton, volunteers as a mentor) who can help decode the rules, while also providing invaluable advice to bright and capable, yet overlooked, talent.

The program lets participants take advantage of the vast knowledge their mentors bring to the table. “Because I’ve managed so much talent, I understood that for most of the mentors, their greatest asset is time.” But she adds that the relationship is about professional guidance only. “I don’t give a shit if your boyfriend ghosted you. All of your personal problems stay somewhere else.” Mentors should not be solicited for pitches, letters of recommendation, or job offers. But Chang says those things often happen organically.

Tears welled in Janel Bell’s eyes as she thought back on her struggle to make sense of her purpose. “This brings back a lot that I hadn’t really thought about in a long time, that isolation. I’ve always been a think-on-my- own, I don’t follow the crowd type … I’m pretty much self-made,” she said, reflecting on her search for someone to guide her professionally. “It can be very isolating when you don’t have anyone else as like-minded to really connect with.” After 25 years of raising children, the 47-year-old mother of 10 thought that there was absolutely no one who could relate to her experience, let alone help her craft a new career trajectory. With a little intentional intervention, though, Bell realized that the next chapters of her professional dreams were yet to be written.

Initially, Bell was reluctant to apply to Unlock Her Potential program she came across because she struggled to see her worth beyond motherhood. But the universe quickly and joyfully shattered that fallacy. It soon became evident that her unique experience with caregiving was one that she knew people could learn from. She toyed with the idea of writing a book but had no idea where or how to start. The mentor she was matched with, Marcelle Karp, is an author and creative director and was able to tap into a part of her that had been overlooked. “Through her, I would not be where I am now, it was just such an awesome experience to have her unlock the writer within me,” Bell said.

The Voices of Unlock Her Potential

Unlock Her Potential is going into its third year and opening applications for a new class of mentees on August 1 with over 40 amazing new mentors. And Chang encourages people at all stages of their careers to apply. In fact, many of her mentees are women looking to pivot into new career fields. “I wrote my first screenplay at 54 and my memoir at 50. You couldn’t have told me at 50 that I didn’t deserve a mentor,” she said.

As she reflects on how far her program has come, Chang says she knows that the best is yet to come. “Unlock Her Potential is the biggest job I have,” she said. “And other than my children, it will be my greatest legacy.”

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