Mentorship is a great pathway for enhancing employees’ skills and enabling them to tap into valuable knowledge and experience.
But what about the mentors themselves? We speak with Beatriz Quintino, Senior Data Scientist, and Mariana Ferreira, Product Lead from FARFETCH’s programme to hear why they’re involved and what they’ve learned so far.
Beatriz is a senior data scientist with a Ph.D. in the intersection of Computer Vision and Machine Learning from Instituto Superior Técnico and a background in Electrical and Computer Engineering.
She has been at FARFETCH for almost two years in the Fashion Knowledge System team, where she’s been applying Artificial Intelligence methods to automatically enrich FARFETCH data to empower downstream applications like search and recommendations.
Before this, she had been a Ph.D. student intern at FARFETCH and a visiting scholar at Carnegie Mellon University.
Beatriz loves fashion and a boardgames night with friends, but not as much as she loves a good pizza.
Mariana, born in Espinho (Portugal), studied Economics and finished a Degree in Management Informatics at the University of Minho, being one of the few women to enroll in the course. Immediately after graduation, she interned at Novabase, starting her career in the consulting area.
At FARFETCH for almost ten years, Mariana has been a Product Lead, responsible for the e-commerce, checkout, and payments areas, leading a team of four people.
Mariana loves to practice yoga and is passionate about the beach, sea, hiking, and cycling. She loves to travel and be with her family and friends.
In this session, we dive into the Farfetch mentoring programme, its aims, and why the mentors want to give back.
hello everyone thank you for tuning in as always I am Kaylee batesman the content director at chican code and
today we’re discussing mentorship now mentorship is a great pathway for enhancing employee skills and enabling
them to tap into valuable knowledge and experience but what about the mentors themselves today I’m lucky enough to
have not just one but two mentors from the far-fetch mentoring program to hear about why they’re involved and what
they’ve learned so far so welcome to Beatrice quintina senior data scientist
at farfetch and Mariana Ferreira lead product manager at farfetch thank you
both for joining us thank you yeah thank you for having us it’s a pleasure thank you well we’d love
to set the scene a little bit because we’ve got a lot to chat about today um but can we get started with a bit of
an intro uh from both of you um a bit about your backgrounds please um Mariana should we start with you for
sure sure so my name is Mariana I’m a lead product manager as you said at
farfetch for almost 10 years which makes me feel like a dinosaur in
the company I have a degree in it management but uh
Anna sorry for that I was never a code fan so I started in the consultancy I never
called much um then I moved to a more uh marketing
and Commercial role until uh and project management until I joined farfetch and
started in the world of scrum and on in the product area amazing and Beatrice
yeah so from my side yeah my background is a little bit more techy and nerdy probably yeah it’s nice to have a
balance exactly so yeah I’m a senior data scientist at farfetch almost two
years now at Target so yeah also a shorter history at farpage and my
background is from electrical and computers engineering and I actually did a PhD in machine learning
um focusing on computer vision methods for for image classification so yeah
again a bit more techy and nerdy um and yeah I’m actually currently working on
the topics I I work on my PhD and and did some research
um so yeah that’s that’s about it it’s always interesting to hear the roots into Tech though and it’s so interesting
to hear that both of you ladies have completely different routes in and that one you know saying I’m Technical and
there’s one non-technical because that’s that’s what we love to hear on this podcast that there are so many different
routes in and that you don’t have to think I have to study computer science at University to go in into technology
exactly and I have to do programming to have success in tech companies yeah
exactly and so obviously both of you um are you know love working at farfetch
and that you’re having a great career path there so far that you’ve both joined the mentoring program
um that Farfetch’d run can you tell us a little bit about that mentoring program and and why it’s so important yeah well
I can I can give it a start um so yeah this is my first time um in
in the program um and I I think well the program is really I would say it’s longer than
um other programs I know it runs more than for for more than 10 months so it’s
really a great opportunity to work some skills with your mentee and and watch
her progress throughout this time so that’s that’s really really a nice feature it’s not like a One-Shot thing
or a short term um compromise so it’s kind of a long long term relation that you you can have
with your with your mentee and I think it’s it’s a really great opportunity to also share like the positive and
nurturing culture that farfetch has so I don’t know Marianne if he wants to give
any more details but for me those are like two really important main points that kind of um yeah sets the difference
from proud for this mentorship program yeah yeah in my opinion I think the the
far-fetched mentorship program is absolutely amazing and beneficial for both mentee and Mentor
in terms of professional and personal growth so they also have the opportunity to
interact with other mentees and share different background stories goals cultural differences
and one of the things that my mentee said the other day is that we are like
professional moms to them which fulfill my heart that was nice
and what can I say I wish I could have a similar program when I when I started my
journey yes I would say exactly the same that was actually one of the points uh yeah I
would like to mention is that yeah I would love to have such an opportunity earlier at an earlier stage of my career
um actually you can get kind of these insights into like companies when you do an internship program but this is this
is different like you have someone dedicated and tackling uh any question you you have
um and I think we’ve also made a huge commitment and effort to create like these safe sharing space that we have
with our mentees which maybe doesn’t happen in other like opportunities like internships or other kinds of situations
um so yeah definitely would love to have have had such an opportunity earlier on
yeah and how were you matched you both mentioned that you have a minty each was there a process that you went through or
did somebody say you know this person would be a really good match for you in the area that you work in uh We’ve
submitted um some points of our of our career path and I think the the mentees went to uh
through the same process so they they filled in an application um it’s the same where they were now and
what they were trying to to look for in this program and I really felt that in
my case for instance the the match was really well thought and was curated because
um in my case my minty is still in in Academia so she’s still studying and since I had some background I I spent
some time in Academia actually we’ve been having the opportunity to discuss what are like main differences between
Academia and being in the industry and she’s also also thinking of pursuing a PhD so I could we could discuss plenty
plenty on that topic so it really felt like a really really great match yes yeah and so what made you both want
to get involved in in the first place when you heard about the program
well essentially I wanted to give back to the community I wanted to guarantee
that I have an important role in reducing the Imposter syndrome that can
result from not having enough experience or knowledge at the beginning of your
career you know as I said before I didn’t have that chance so uh basically
um and I wanted for these young women not feeling the same so I was the only
woman mode most of the times even in classes canteens or even in professional
meetings and sometimes it’s tough yeah and so many people feel the same
way and don’t realize that this is not spoken about but to hear about it from somebody that’s been in their career a
little longer just to hear you know what you’re not the only one exactly it really helps the area the tech area is
very mandominant yeah in those these days as well so yeah yeah it’s it’s
really funny that Maria mentioned this because we didn’t align on anything before this conversation but my um my
main feeling is also of giving back in my case I did have some cases of older
women uh doing some mentorship for me so I wanted kind of to give back to them and continue on that like keeping that
chain have continued to mentoring younger girls in my case and so there
was also that feeling of giving back to the community to younger girls but also like following the examples of of women
before me um and especially in my case but personally I’ve really felt like my mom
she also works in the tech area so this is a bit more personal but she was kind of a mentor to me throughout my journey
and it’s really nice that also Mariana mentioned that her mentally just said that she was kind of playing her mother
a mother of all so this is all this all it ties really really well and I also
felt that and I I was really happy I remember telling my mom I’m going to be
a mentor and I’ll try to be on your shoes um to to yeah to encourage younger
younger girls to to get into Tech so it was kind of a bit more like a trying to to keep the example from I was lucky
enough to have some women mentors in the past yeah yeah and so as the
professional mum how did they then take those learnings and apply them in the
workplace yeah so in my case um I remember we did the SWOT analysis
for example um and we’ve worked on the weakness and
areas to where she was strong
um I also put it in touch with the engineers in my team so she can have a
more Tech overview of the company so she’s still
um not sure if she’s going to a more Tech role or
um other areas he’s still working on that so we also worked a lot on her soft
skills I help at building her LinkedIn page for
instance um yeah I think there’s a lot of things that she can
apply in the future from based on our conversations
in my in my case uh well since my mentee is still studying but yeah there are a
lot of learnings she could also apply um and we were focusing more on like
career advising for her future and and decisions between like falling Masters
PhD going to Industry internships Etc and also yeah working on on CV because
she’s doing her CV for the first time for these internships and then after after finishing graduation and also yeah
preparing for this possible in internship interviews and yeah knowing a
bit more what like companies are looking for in someone with with her profile so
yeah we’re covering this more career advising CV preparing for internships and yeah knowing a bit more better about
yeah what companies are looking for yeah and I wanted to ask you next about
um the questions that the mentees tend tend to ask you I suppose what I’m wondering is do they come you know
brimming with questions and things that they would love to know or if you found them to be quite introverted and and not
knowing you know you trying to pull them out of yourselves but Mariano I can see you nodding there like my mentally she’s
so organized that she always come with a bunch of questions and it was so funny
because when I talked with the first engineer in my team when that she was going to talk I told him she does a lot
of questions be prepared and when they when they end up the conversation he
told me whoa when I was like 18 years I didn’t know what I wanted I wasn’t able
to do so many questions so that’s why I was I was laughing because yeah she is
she always comes very prepared she’s still studying as well as Beatrice mentee
she applied for internship now she’s working in a hospital in Boston
um in doing doing things in the technical department in the I.T
department and uh I also was asked to write a
recommendation letter for her which is was the first time I had to do it
but essentially as Beatrice was saying she asks a lot of interview advices
because they will start uh doing the resume the LinkedIn also
networking tips they she requests a lot
and I think most of all um I share a lot of my day-to-day
experience she likes to know what was the biggest challenge of the week how
did I deal with this this situation others so it’s pretty much on real life
cases yeah because I was thinking well me at 18 I might not been asking this many
questions honestly you don’t always know what ask but it’s nice to hear that they’re coming with a list of things or
that they’re really taking advantage of the opportunity and thinking you know I’m not going to waste it I’m going to
ask as many questions as I can and Beatrice what about your Mentor is is she just as organized
um oh well I think um she doesn’t put that so up front like
it doesn’t look like she has a list but she she has uh she has her goals are
very clear in in her mindset I would say so yes she had some questions about uh
what’s like working in a company like farfetch with with such a big Dimension with different businesses and different
what different roles you you may play inside farfetch and also yeah what’s
like working in the fashion domain because it’s it’s always a very big peculiar and and a well interesting
super interesting domain and she made me a hard question about like what’s like
to be a woman working like in your team and how does that affect your your day-to-day basis I actually had to to
reflect on that to to be able to transfer and I think that that was a really great question that that she she
came up with um and then yeah we also talked a bit a bit about the uh differences between
Academia and then in this industry um because of our common backgrounds
um and also yes you wanted to um to use this opportunity to improve some skills so we identified that in the
beginning and she wanted to to train public speaking she she felt she she had lack of confidence and and since yeah on
a day-to-day basis we also communicate and interact a lot at farfetch and farfetch was awesome to to provide us
with some training um resources for us to to share so I did
that training with with her and um yeah she watched a lot of videos did activities and in the end she she made a
presentation uh with all the tips she had learned and so hopefully she now feels more more confident more confident
about delivering a speech and our presentation to to an audience uh so
yeah she she had that those those ideas um when she she joined and she she was
pinpointing to improve some of her skills um so yeah I would say mostly around
those points yeah yeah amazing and it’s lovely as well that you have a long-term relationship
with these ladies and it’s obviously something that you can get to learn more about their personality and what what
might be suited for them or just to see them grow I suppose instead of you know just a one-off coffee with somebody and
trying to give them advice um during that that relationship are you
noticing any patterns with with the women that you Mentor you know um Beatrice you were just mentioning there
about having them finding the confidence for public speaking do you find there’s any patterns with and The Stereotype of
women in Tech is that don’t always put themselves forward for great roles they don’t always feel that they they meet
um everything that’s that’s listed on on the the job advertisement is is that something you’re both finding with with
your mentees definitely yes I felt it from personal experience and I can kind
of yeah see that reflection on this mentees and yeah I wanted to pick up also again on this in the on the
Imposter syndrome that Mariana mentioned I think that’s that’s like sometimes an elephant in the room
um and that we we all face and also that was one of my my main reasons to grab
these this mentorship program I think it’s like a great way to to fight this
um and yeah we’ve also we’ve mentioned this in our talks uh in our conversations with my mentally The
Imposter syndrome um and I yeah I hope I I do see that is lack of confidence sometimes is a bit
transversal to to different areas of of working and also yeah this lack of
confidence in speaking in public because as I was mentioning I think it has also
a bit to to do with the Imposter syndrome um so yeah definitely those are related
and we do see that maybe unfortunately it still is a pattern but we are trying to to fight that actively uh fight
against that very actively so that like these younger generation
um feels much more empowered by by yeah the careers we have had and showing that
yeah unfortunately imposter syndrome is natural but yeah we do need to fight it
because um yeah there’s no reason to to feel that but yeah unfortunately we’ve seen
and yeah there are a lot loads of studies showing that especially women and especially in these like environments that are dominated by by
males we we tend to feel that a lot more so but yeah hopefully this mentorship
program is a a great way to to combat and fight this but yeah I don’t know median if you have also
yeah with everything you said I will just add that they they all have the
energy and the will to learn new things they are very keen to to to learn and to
to know more from from us and also I think they all have as you you touch on
that point as well Beatrice the wish to work at farfetch so farfetch is a sexy
company it’s a fashion it’s the Fashion World with the code in the techie the
techie part so I think this is also a huge opportunity for them to to know
better about the the company yeah it’s it’s obviously you have the the
luxury of being a company that you know sounds fun and that that they would want to work out do they have you heard them
Express views maybe about the tech industry where you think if that sounds a little bit negative you know sometimes
the tech industry is seen as um you know you have to be a techie to go into it and you have to be a certain
stereotype to work in the industry and it has quite a bad rap doesn’t it take
as a whole is that something that you you hear them say to you
um which you know as you say you have the luxury of telling them actually it’s absolutely the opposite of that you know
where where you where you both work totally yes my mentee uh yeah she she
touched that point and she was asking specifically about some tech companies and of course we another thing that
Mariana had pointed out are networking tips and of course uh as we are in our
careers we have like these huge networks and we we can take some learnings from the people we know working at other our
companies and we know other realities so yeah I was trying to um to explain to
her of course there are different realities uh some are more negative others are really really much much more
positive and but and I was trying to to show her like in how many different ways
farfetch yeah and how many ways farfetch is so different from some of for instance those consultancy
um companies in which um yeah mindset is still very different uh it’s I told her that for instance in
my team we kind of work as a a tech startup in some ways so we have lots of
flexibility and freedom and we can speak here about yeah like work-life balance
it’s and and the schedule flexibility Etc so she she had concerns about it of
course and she was asking for like some specific companies um and yeah we discussed that definitely
that was an important point for her and again I think Prophet is really really sexy for for our mentees and we have the
opportunity to touch on all those points and show the the great um benefits that that we have and how
that impacts our our daily life especially like I really love the the work-life balance we we get and that was
something we I really really try to uh to pass the message uh on to her
um about so yeah
and knows what she wants anyway is that something that you’ve heard from her or did she come in full of beans I know
what I want to do I know where I want to work I want to work somewhere like barbage yeah she she likes she told me
she told me that that she well she’s in Boston she’s a far away and she’s from
Nigeria which is also uh good for us to to for our conversation so we are all in
a very different time zone and yeah she she always talks about
far-fetch uh with the assigning the eyes you know and I always make this
disclaimer and I want I want to do it as well for for people that are listening to us is that farfetch is a tech company
that works for the luxury markets okay because uh sometimes people get
excited with the Fashion World luxury and that’s the business but the core of
the company is Tech yeah which was makes it so interesting
and so fast paced um that it’s just a a really great place
to work with lots lots of opportunities and and that was the next question as well but I wanted to ask you about
opportunities um you know what opportunities does this mentoring program has it given to you to
empower young girls well I was more aware of the gender
representativity within teams um
still right um and for me it also contributed for
something I I wanted to do for a long time which was the creation of the women
in Tech Circle Network so basically we kick off this this
support network uh the end of last year
and the mission is to empower women that work in f-tech which is our tech
department at farfetch to have a more active voice and play a role in driving change in gender representativity at
farfetch so I like Beatrice said so we
want a safety place in the company where people can share experiences and
talk without fears and feel safe
yes yeah yeah ask yourself yeah yeah on my side I think this has
also given me the opportunity to put my own career into a perspective so kind of
doing a retrospective analysis which is something we also do on a weekly basis in our Tech teams I did it to to myself
thinking of where is my mentee where my minty is at now and
where I was at at her age and how can I compare the careers
um and also something I feel like I’m really benefiting a lot from these
interactions and and contact with my mentee it’s kind of um being able to bridge the age Gap like
you you keep this young spirits and and communicating with yeah getting new
ideas and keep keep updated about like what’s what’s what’s new in the in in
the young girls minds and so I really really like that because sometimes when
you work in a company you are surrounded with people like your own age or even older
um and it’s really nice to have like this fresh perspective from someone from
a young girl um entering the the markets so I really like these having like these
this press perspective and kind of breaching these age Gap yeah that’s also that was also really nice benefit
um yeah but it feels like you get a lot back um you get a lot back from from these young
ladies um and and just new ideas as you say first first perspectives
to inspire and be inspired Kelly I would say yes exactly exactly
what advice would you give yourself just starting out if you if you were one of
the mentees what would you hope that one of your mentors would uh say say to you
yeah maybe I can start with this one um this is something I’ve already kind of reflected and my my main conclusion
is that um give yourself time to find something that you’re really passionate about I think that’s really really
important um in my career I I I I was able to work in many different areas so I could
experiment a bit of everything and I took that time and I think that’s really important that you are really passionate
about what you do every day so what you wake up to you wake up every day to to
do um and yeah a great one Beatrice it happened to me as well so really really
good good advice and something else is that you especially in the tech area is
that you you should expect to be constantly learning and should be able to be open to to learning a different
even from Techni from a technical perspective and also from like soft skills and other perspectives but be
always open and available to to new learnings yeah those those would be my
my mind to takeaways and advices yeah I would like to to to know really really
good advice and Mariano is there is there anything else that you wish someone had told you on my point of view
it’s the the one don’t be afraid to say no because when we are at the beginning
of our career we want to embrace everything learn everything and we we
don’t want to disappoint anyone so we tend to say yes to everything and that
turns against us so don’t be afraid to say no and prioritize your your your tasks and
relax so that’s the the advice in the end everything goes well and if it’s not
so it’s not the end yet yes relax honestly if somebody is when I was
younger because you you’re right you worry so much you know what people think of you at the
company and what they’re going to think especially if they’re doing something um like Patricia you were talking about uh
public speaking or something like that you know is incredibly daunting when you’re young um so just to have somebody say to you
exactly yeah exactly I would say yeah no rush the journey like your career journey is so long and it’s really
important for you to find the time to to find something you’re really passionate about so yeah relax no no rush try to
um have like a bird’s eye perspective view from like very different um companies and topics and areas and
yeah and and that also something else I would I always like to say is and coming
from a technical background is saying that like careers should be highly non-linear and it’s okay that they are
non-linear right so so yeah but that is lovely advice to end it on today ladies
because we are already out of time and it has flown by because it’s been such an interesting conversation to to have
you both with us so thank you so much for joining us today thank you nice to meet you and you thank you and for
everybody listening as always thank you so much for for tuning in and we hope to see you again next time
