Forget a Mentor, Find a Sponsor. Sylvia Ann Hewlett
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dandelions when the postman walked through the front gate holding a telltale manila envelope. My heart leaped into my mouth. I knew the drill because I had already been turned down by Oxford. Rejections came by regular post (why waste money on students you’re turning down); acceptances came by telegram. Hands trembling, I grabbed the envelope, ripped it open, and read the magic words: “Offering place at Girton College, Cambridge University. Full scholarship. Letter following. Congratulations.” I let out a piercing shriek, grabbed the amazed postman by the hand, and did a kind of furious stomping dance on the patch of dirt I’d just been digging. Hearing the ruckus, three of my sisters ran out of the house. It took them a moment to figure out what was happening, but a grubby fist waving a manila telegram told the story and they joined in with gusto. I don’t remember a happier day. I knew Cambridge would transform my life chances.
But how exactly did I get into one of the best universities in Europe?
Even at the time, I realized that I didn’t do this on my own. Sure, I took some of the credit (I had, after all, done an enormous amount of work), but I owed much to others. My dad was first on my list. Miss Gwen Jones was second. But I also was dimly aware of the contributions of Sally Alexander, a student activist who led the fight for equal access to education for British women, and Barbara Castle (a Minister in the Labor government who was spearheading new legislation on equal pay and equal opportunity). I didn’t quite appreciate it at the time, but without these larger shifts in social attitudes and political priorities, I would not have gotten in. Oxbridge admissions committees were newly in the business of leaning over backward to see potential in candidates like me.
My years at Cambridge were almost as magical as my father promised. Despite some tough stuff on the social front (my accent and general lack of polish made it extremely difficult to fit into the upper-class student scene), by the middle of my first year I was under the wing of a remarkable woman who loved my spunk and determination and went to bat on my behalf. Dr. Jean Grove was a high-profile academic economist and my supervisor at Girton. Her support was transformative. A mere six months into my time at Cambridge, she chose me as her research assistant and invited me to accompany her on a summer research trip to Africa. She not only invited me to go, she made sure I could afford to take her up on the offer (my family was not in a position to bankroll a trip to Africa). That spring she sat down with me and painstakingly helped me apply for a foundation grant and then wrote the pivotal recommendation that ensured I got it.
Ghana was an extraordinary experience. We spent six weeks working with the Ewe tribe in the Volta Delta collecting agricultural data—crop yields, planting cycles, and so on. By the end of the summer, we’d accumulated enough evidence to demonstrate that the Ewe had developed a sustainable—and highly productive—type of intensive agriculture. They’d done this on their own using indigenous rather than imported methods and materials. It was a breakthrough finding.
My research assistantship in Ghana had huge payoffs for me. It fueled a lifelong interest in economic development and led to a coauthored article (with Jean Grove) that lifted my confidence and greatly improved my prospects for graduate school. Two years later, I won a spot at Harvard University—and a Kennedy Scholarship.
Post-Harvard and post–London University (where I earned my PhD), I landed a sought-after first job: as assistant professor of economics at Barnard College, Columbia University, and began to forge what should have been a promising career in academe. I wish I could say that it was smooth sailing. It was not.
I made the classic female mistake. I thought that it was all about doing my job extraordinarily well. If I put my head down and worked as hard as I knew how, my value to the organization would be self-evident, and, of course, I would be recognized and promoted.
In retrospect, I could kick myself. Why didn’t I understand that at these beginning stages of a serious and super competitive career, I needed a sponsor more than ever? Someone with power who believed in me and was prepared to propel and protect me as I set about climbing the ladder. Why didn’t I get out there and look for a new Jean Grove?
Don’t get me wrong; I did acquire a ton of supporters. Like many women, I was good at friendships, and during my time at Barnard, I developed mentoring relationships with several close female colleagues. One was an older woman—an historian named Annette Baxter—whom I admired for her kindness and her commitment to principle (she was forever on the outs with her chairman because she disagreed with the direction in which he was taking the department). Annette gave me a great deal. I remember with particular gratitude the ways in which she boosted my confidence and soothed my soul when I felt overwhelmed by the demands of a new baby, layered as it was on top of the pressures of a high-octane job. But close as our relationship was, Annette could not be my sponsor. She had little clout at Barnard (her feud with her department chair put her out of play), and her influence in my discipline (economics) was nonexistent.
My lack of sponsors had extremely serious consequences. Crunch time came seven years later, when I was up for tenure. In the months leading up to the decision, I was increasingly confident. I had always been an outstanding teacher—my ratings were off the charts—but I felt newly confident on the research front. My recent book had garnered stellar reviews and the attention of policy makers as well as scholars. As I helped my chairman assemble my dossier, I thought that it looked pretty impressive.
Imagine my shock when, three months later, I was denied tenure. My department supported me (I breezed by with a unanimous vote). The damage was done by the university-wide committee (the APT—Appointments, Promotion, and Tenure committee of Columbia University), which shot me down in a three-to-two vote. It turns out I had no advocates at this critical, final level. No one even knew me. According to a friend of a friend who knew something about the deliberations of the committee, the only thing about my seven-year track record that attracted the committee’s attention was that I’d recently given birth to a premature baby. They feared this would “dilute my focus.”
How did I deal with this massive setback? Not well. I had plowed twelve years of my life into this career of mine and I felt bewildered, betrayed, and brutally cast out. I mourned the waste of time and energy, but more importantly I mourned the loss of a beloved profession—one that I deeply valued and was exceptionally good at. Tenure decisions are “up” or “out”—you’re either promoted to associate professor (and given lifetime job security) or you’re fired. The decision came down in April, and by mid-May, I was packing up my office.
As I regrouped and attempted to figure out how to reinvent my professional life, one thing was sure: I’d learned my lesson on the sponsorship front. I now understood that climbing the ladder in any competitive field required heavy-duty support from a senior person with heft and influence.
Finding such a person wasn’t easy. I hadn’t been in the business of cultivating such relationships. But after some soul searching, I realized that I did have such a person in my back pocket. His name was Harvey Picker and he was dean of the School of International Affairs at Columbia University and former CEO of Picker Instruments. Picker wasn’t particularly influential at Columbia (he didn’t sit on any of the critical university-wide committees), but he did have power in the wider world, and most importantly, he was a great fan of mine. We’d met through my teaching. A Brazil enthusiast, Picker had sat in on some sessions of a course I taught on the Latin American economy, and we’d had spirited discussions on growth models and on trade-offs between economic growth and social justice in the Third World. We shared a Portuguese language instructor and a love of fado (Portuguese folk music).
A week after the tenure debacle, I turned up in Harvey’s office clear-eyed and focused. I came directly to the point: could he help me find a job?
Harvey came through. Indeed, he was not merely responsive; he got out in front. In his old-fashioned courtly way, he told me that he’d learned of what he called “the ridiculous tenure decision” and was profoundly put out, so much so that he’d taken it upon himself to scope out a job that might suit me. The top slot at the Economic Policy Council (a New York–based nonprofit that brought together 100 corporate CEOs and trade union leaders to examine cutting-edge issues) was open, and Harvey thought that my skill set was perfect for the position. I had precisely the mix of top-notch academic credentials and international experience they