ABSTRACT
On April 24, 1995, the Wall Street Journal carried an article entitled “How a Dedicated Mentor Gave Momentum to a Woman’s Career.” The woman in the article was Ms. Dianna Green, formerly a senior vice president at Xerox Corporation and named by the media as one of the 25 most powerful women in America. Green, an African American, had come to her top-level position at Xerox under the tutelage of her White male mentor, who had recently convinced her to resign her position at Xerox and join him in running a small Pittsburgh utility. As CEO of the utility company, he realized that Green “faces obstacles,” the journalist reported, and so “he makes sure she understands her new corporate culture, sings her praises to outsiders at every turn and helps her land on several boards” (Hymowitz, 1995). He described his mentoring relationship with Green as not “a formal process,” but rather as “something that happens because you have great respect for another person” (Hymowitz, 1995, pp. B1-2).
