Hi everyone, my name is Basile and I'm a Senior Consultant in our Paris office. I launched Working Out , a mentoring program for LGBTQ+ professionals, earlier this year. The program was already up and running when I discovered that a Roland Berger Social Fellowship would give me the opportunity to advance my project while being financially supported by Roland Berger.

What I appreciate most about this opportunity is that social fellowships offer you the incredible chance to dive into a topic that you care about a lot, and to do this in parallel with your career within Roland Berger.

I founded Working Out with two friends from university. Our goal is to foster the inclusion of LGBTQ+ students and graduates. We are convinced that when you start in a new company – it's your first job, and you're still in the closet at work – it would make all the difference if you had an understanding mentor by your side who had gone through similar experiences.

Working Out, the first French mentoring association for young LGBTQ+ professionals who come out at work, started earlier this year with a first batch of 25 mentees and 25 mentors. Our ambitious goal is to increase these numbers to 100 mentees and mentors, so part of my Social Fellowship time will be dedicated to liaising partnerships with LGBTQ+ associations at universities.

Other topics I'm planning to tackle during my fellowship are taking the offerings of Working Out up another notch, recruiting volunteers to help run the organization, meeting with inspiring professionals in the field of mentoring and LGBTQ+ inclusion as well as doing some fundraising.

I think it's amazing that this Social Fellowship gives me the chance to explore a project further that brings me a lot of excitement and fulfillment even in my day-to-day work. To me, these fellowships are a sign of trust on the part of our company, a sign that they want to invest in their people and that they see long-term potential in their careers.

Colleagues from our Just be network are supporting a similar mentoring initiative in Germany. Find out more about it here: Queermentor - Training & Empowerment Network