Oliver Buhlinger wins Brunel University of London Professional Mentor of the Year 2024-25 Award
- igolean
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
Our CEO, Oliver Buhlinger was awarded the Mentor of the Year Award 2024-2025 Brunel Professional Mentoring, on 23 May, at Brunel University of London Star Awards celebrations. With the Mayor of Hillingdon giving a keynote, the event honoured Mentors and Mentees, students from Brunel Foreign Languages, Brunel Volunteers and the Brunel Plus project. It was a chance to find out about the range of Brunel Professional Development Centre projects on offer to the students.
Oliver was nominated by two of his mentees during the 2024-2025 programme, Melroy Pereira and William Rohleder, who likewise were nominated by GO LEAN for their demonstrated excellence and progression during the mentoring programme. Yoanna Sharobim, Internship and Mentoring Assistant, presented the award. "The key differentiator was not that GO LEAN offered one of the students a placement but rather that Oliver inspired both students, including showing them the GO LEAN products to give the mentees deeper insights into the industry".
Alex Burton, a previous GO LEAN mentee mentored by Oliver, received the Gold+ Award, having collected over 1500 points, for the non-academic activities participated in during his time at Brunel. Students record what they do in three of the four categories below to earn points. (Global+, Campus+, Wellbeing+, Professional+) demonstrating to employers that Alex is a well-rounded candidate with skills beyond academia.
Oliver has mentored with Brunel Professional Mentoring for over ten years. GO LEAN has been supporting the programme for over 6 years.
The ceremonies were held at the Eastern Gateway Atrium. Past Mentoring Manager Bertie Ross was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to the University. Bertie has recently retired and passed the baton to Christel Thames, giving a moving speech about mentoring and his faith in Christel Thames, Careers Consultant and Interim Strategic Lead for Brunel Professional Mentoring & WiBEC to continue to make the Brunel Professional Mentoring Programme impactful.
Established in 2003 by the late Dr. Beverley Crookes, the programme has grown from 6 to 210 matched mentees across various strands. It was a special event commemorating this milestone. Brunel's Professional Mentoring Programme is a career-focused mentoring scheme connecting students from underrepresented backgrounds with experienced professionals to develop the planning and interpersonal skills essential for finding placements, internships or graduate jobs. Over 80 public and private sector employers currently support the scheme, including the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Blake Morgan LLP, GlaxoSmithKline, Gilead, Heathrow Airport, HM Revenue & Customs, Sport England, Jaguar Land Rover, PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Government Legal Service.
What the mentees say about having a mentor:
“I am completing application forms for placements at a higher standard than I was doing before I started the programme.”
“I feel more confident about my future job prospects.”
“All these mentors devote so much time and energy for no visible benefit to themselves.”
“My mentor’s advice has given me the confidence to apply for top placements.”
Yoanna Sharobim was recognised for her work at the Brunel Professional Mentoring Programme and Impact made, as the Internship and Mentoring Assistant for the Brunel Professional Development Centre. Yoannna graduated with first-class honours in Psychology.
The Brunel Professional Mentoring Programme offers multiple benefits to the mentors and mentor-sponsoring companies. This includes raising brand awareness, personal professional development and networking opportunities. Bavin Lachani, Aviation consultant and Oliver Buhlinger met many years ago at the Women in Brunel Engineering and Computing (WiBEC) mentoring programme, and continue to stay in touch and support each other as mentors.
Find out more about Brunel Professional Mentoring here:
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