Strategic talent development: How external mentoring programs benefit the insolvency profession
12/12/2025
Contributors
- Scott Pascoe RITF, Partner & CEO, WLP Restructuring
- Brenda Powell RITP, Senior Associate, Norton Rose Fulbright
- Julie Scardamaglia, Partner – People, This Friday
External mentoring programs do more than teach mentees technical skills – they help build confidence, improve soft skills and gain greater job satisfaction. Mentors also benefit by gaining fresh cross-generational insights that can improve team performance. When built on a strong foundation of positive psychology and adult learning principles, and supported by careful external matching and ongoing guidance, they create an environment where participants challenge each other to learn new approaches. Drawing on observations from mentors, mentees, and the program facilitator of the ARTIA mentor program, this article shows how these programs can be strategic tools for talent development and firm-wide resilience.
Mentoring programs in the restructuring and insolvency sector can often be viewed as a basic tool for knowledge transfer: the sharing of technical expertise from senior staff to junior colleagues. However, as Julie Scardamaglia, Partner at This Friday – a professional services firm specialising in facilitating external corporate mentoring programs – asserts, the true benefits can be far more significant.
For insolvency professionals dealing with complex appointments, volatile markets, and sensitive stakeholder relationships, specialised external mentoring provides targeted, evidence-based support that delivers long-term professional growth, setting it apart from informal or internal mentorship.
Independently building core competence in soft skills
Julie explains that mentoring is especially effective at passing on the kind of knowledge formal training often misses. These insights and competencies are the critical, often unwritten skills necessary for success in professional services, such as understanding office politics, handling difficult situations and personalities, and mastering the finer points of dealing with clients.
“A good mentoring relationship can help the mentee become more comfortable and confident in their role, and be happier in the job overall. It can help mentees thrive in a job that may otherwise have seemed beyond them for reasons other than the technical work,” she says.
Brenda Powell RITP, Senior Associate at Norton Rose Fulbright and a mentee in the ARITA mentor program facilitated by This Friday, found this type of guidance invaluable. Her mentor provided "very practical tips" on self-advocacy, including the advice to keep a record of professional "wins". Brenda noted this guidance helped her gain perspective and solidify her professional journey.
“[My mentor] has given me lots of great tips on how to advocate for myself. And she really challenged me as well, [in that] you think you know what you're looking for and what you want, and then someone challenges you and asks you why, and you're not really just telling someone what you think they want to hear,” she says.
Importantly, an external mentor can also serve as a vital sounding board for issues that mentees may be less open to sharing within their own firm at first instance, as Brenda reveals when discussing why she joined the mentoring program.
“I thought it would be a great opportunity to… possibly connect with someone that isn't at my firm and isn't in my state as well, which has allowed for more open conversations.
“And [talking to] someone who's sitting at the same level as your bosses and partners, to get that insight has been really valuable as well for my professional relationships.”
Scott Pascoe RITF, Partner & CEO at WLP Restructuring, initially joined the ARITA program as a mentor simply to "give something back to the profession". Yet, he was "delighted by the mentee’s progress," which included reduced stress, improved team relations, and increased networking.
“The benefits [of the program] were confirming that typical mid-career challenges are common, familiar, and can be drawn from my lived experiences. In one instance, advice I gave was repeated verbatim when the mentee later met with his partners,” Scott reveals.
Fostering powerful cross-generational insights
One of the most valuable, and often unexpected, benefits of external mentoring programs is the impact on the mentor. Julie stresses that mentors learn about how younger generations think, what motivates them, and consequently, new ways of approaching business. This cross-generational learning also fosters greater understanding and teamwork across age groups, boosting not only workplace harmony but also overall team effectiveness.
To demonstrate, Julie recounts a scenario from another mentor-mentee program where an experienced senior lawyer in one regional area was paired with a graduate lawyer from a separate firm in another town, who had been considering a move to the city to gain wider experience. As she recalls, the outcomes from the program were surprising to both.
“The mentee came to see the importance of his role in the regional community and discovered new ways to build satisfying work within his existing role. The mentor hadn’t realised before meeting with the mentee how out of touch he was with his own young employees and made significant changes to the structure and operations of his own firm,” she outlines.
Ensuring successful outcomes through objective, structured external facilitation
The efficacy of programs facilitated by This Friday stems from a highly specialised, research-led, and objective approach. Julie states that the organisation draws on principles from positive psychology, adult learning, and organisational development theory to design programs that are practical and engaging.
The use of an external facilitator is also critical for objectivity, particularly during the pairing process. Julie explains that internal programs often use irrelevant criteria like existing relationships, while their methodology is based on a wide range of factors, including goals, strengths, interests, and personal characteristics - the goal is not friendship, but to pair individuals who will "challenge and stretch each other" to learn new ways of operating. While algorithms can assist, This Friday relies on the "human element" of reading between the lines to ensure successful pairings.
For Brenda, this objectivity was key. Being paired with a mentor from a different state and firm enabled "more open conversations," and a "more meaningful, open dialogue". She felt the matching was successful in terms of personality, finding her mentor to be "very real and fun," but also honest enough to challenge her perspective.
External facilitators are also able to provide specialist and robust support structures, and address challenges in real time. Julie reveals that a check-in with participants during the ARITA program exposed areas that some pairs found challenging, leading This Friday to facilitate a webinar at short notice to provide support and turn potential friction into a valuable learning experience.
By providing robust support, sophisticated matching and insights from research, external mentoring programs offer insolvency firms an effective tool for fostering confident professionals, enhancing team harmony, and developing future leaders.
To submit an expression of interest in the 2026 ARITA Mentor Program, please click here.
ARITA thanks the following Mentors and Mentees for their participation and contribution to the 2025 ARITA Mentor Program.
| Mentors |
Mentees |
| Nicole Allmark, Rodgers Reidy |
Joshua Beckett, Westburn Advisory |
| Liam Bailey, O'Brien Palmer |
Jai Bhalla, McGrathNicol |
| Michael Brennan, SV Partners |
Erin Blake, Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (FEG) |
| David Brushe, BDO |
James Bugeja, KordaMentha |
| Rachel Burdett, Cor Cordis |
Shaun Carrington, Sheridans Chartered Accountants |
| Amanda Carruthers, Victorian Bar |
Christopher Conrad, Canon |
| Kate Conneely, Cor Cordis |
Harin Gamage, SMB Advisory |
| Chris Cook, Worrells |
Simran Goyal, KordaMentha |
| Nicholas Edwards, Hamilton Locke |
Wesley Hart-McKinnon, KordaMentha |
| Paul Evans, Cornwalls |
Timon Ibrahim, Clayton Utz |
| Todd Gammel, HLB Mann Judd |
Catherine Jaques, FTI Consulting |
| Hannah Griffiths, Pinsent Masons |
Adrian Kimti, Olvera Advisors |
| Michael Gronow KC, Victorian Bar |
Samuel Lam, Greengate Advisory |
| Alicia Hill, Sladen Legal |
Brittany Lawrence, McGrathNicol |
| Matthew Jones, Level Twenty Seven Chambers |
John Leung, Hayes Advisory |
| Radhika Kanhai, Moray & Agnew Lawyers |
Ailin Liu, KHQ Lawyers |
| Angelina Kozary, Holman Webb |
Gleb Mezenkov, KordaMentha |
| Tony Lane, Beacon Advisory |
Marie Morgan, Oldhams Advisory |
| Samantha Le Cornu, KordaMentha |
William O'Neil-Shaw, SV Partners |
| Ashley Leslie, Vincents |
Sophia Paikopoulos, KordaMentha |
| Glen Livingston, WLP Restructuring |
Shivangi Paisal, Mendelawitz Morton Commercial Lawyers |
| John Melluish, PCI Partners |
Brenda Powell, Norton Rose Fulbright |
| Tianne Nagy-Jones, Grant Thornton Australia |
Temple Saville, Victorian Bar |
| Scott Pascoe, WLP Restructuring |
Richard Smee, Merchants Advisory |
| Phil Quinlan, KPMG |
Megan Styles, Victorian Bar |
| Thomas Salleh, Pitcher Partners Advisory |
Ariane Thierry, Hamilton Locke |
| Kathy Sozou, McGrathNicol |
Michelle Viscardi, William Buck |
| Matt Sweeny, Cor Cordis |
Teresa Zhang, William Buck |
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