Our Goal
The mentorship experience focuses on networking, career development, and how to navigate the complexities of an interconnected world. Our peer mentors also provide constructive feedback and help their mentees to develop a global mindset.
High Quality Mentors for Future Female Leaders
Our mentors are graduate students or professionals from top global universities who have significant personal and professional achievement. They are a diverse blend of doctoral scholars, industry professionals, and entrepreneurs who are blazing the trail within their specific sectors.
Peer-to-Peer Mentorship
In our Peer-to-Peer Learning program, mentors are paired with mentees to facilitate their personal and professional development as they navigate and develop their careers.
Hear from our Mentors
"At the BMGA Fellows Program, young women come in thinking they're great, but then they leave knowing that they are great. To top it all, they are presented with a compressed but extensive all-round set of tools needed to actually make it as a woman in the contemporary world"
“I thoroughly enjoyed serving as a mentor in the BMGA Fellows Program. It was great to be matched with a mentee in my field who saw things from a different perspective and whose career interest is more industry focused. I also got to learn a lot from her and was inspired by her openness to seeing things differently and pushing herself outside her comfort zone.”
“The peer-to-peer learning program is well organized on the one hand but gives enough flexibility to both the mentee and mentor to structure the schedule as it best suits. The mentorships are focused on career development as well as personal development. It is a rewarding experience that I can highly recommend.”
“I had a wonderful experience as a mentor for the Peer to Peer learning component of the BMGA Fellows Program. I think personally, I have gotten the opportunity to dip into my own leadership skills through the program, and I have gotten a sense of satisfaction that comes from the feeling that you're trying to help someone grow and succeed.”
“My experience with the BMGA Fellows Program was great as a mentor. My relationship with my mentee was also a good one in the sense that I think it was more like a mutualistic benefit. As the relationship between my mentee and I developed overtime, I discovered so many other aspects of myself that I had not thought about in the past.”
“My experience as a peer mentor has been both fulfilling but also challenging in the sense that with every person I'm paired with, I'm challenged to apply myself and most of the time immerse myself in entirely new industries, social context, life purposes and other factors in order to be of any value to my mentee. What sets BMGA apart from other programs is the support and tools they give their members as well as how much effort they put into ensuring the mentee-mentor relationship is useful to both parties.”
“My experience as a peer mentor in the BMGA Fellows Program was fantastic. It strengthened my capacities in mentorship, effective listening, and willingness to learn from others. It was also a humbling experience - not only did I learn from my formidable mentees, but the Program pushed me to take action on the academic and entrepreneurial endeavours I had been stalling on. The BMGA Fellows Program promotes cross-cultural interaction, women’s empowerment, and lifelong learning - an excellent initiative indeed!”
“To me, the BMGA Fellows Program is a very wonderful scheme that provides an excellent platform for young women to connect with their peers in the same cohort, and to have conversations and discussions with their mentors in order to rediscover themselves. Participating in the Peer-to-Peer mentorship has helped me to deepen my leadership and communication skills, and has also equipped me with the expertise needed to be a better mentor.”
Stephen Ajadi
Stephen Ajadi is a doctoral scholar at the University of Cambridge with focus on Architecture, Planning, Land Economy and Sustainable Development. He is a Development Economist at BT Telecommunications, United Kingdom, a British multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered in London, England with operations in around 180 countries and is the largest provider of fixed-line, broadband and mobile services in the UK. The company also provides subscription television and IT services.
Stephen Ajadi also currently works as a Finance Consultant at the University of Cambridge Thinklab, a community that strives to create research impact at scale, by collaborating on bigger picture projects with University partner organizations and bringing together interdisciplinary research expertise from across the University of Cambridge.
Cynthia Okoye
Cynthia Okoye is a Pharmacology PhD Candidate and a Gates Cambridge scholar at the University of Cambridge. In 2018, she earned a BA (Hons) in Chemistry with a concentration in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Williams College, Massachusetts where she completed a year-long honors research project on characterizing the effect of clinical and synthetic missense mutations on an enzyme that confers resistance to beta-lactam antibiotics.
In 2017, she was a summer undergraduate fellow at Upstate Medical University. She has also interned at National Institutes of Health (NIH), where she optimized a low-cost and sensitive protocol for mycoplasma detection in malaria parasite cultures.
In addition to her research background, She has served on various committees. She was the 2020-21 co-president of the African Society of Cambridge University (ASCU) and also co-founded and led Africans in STEM, an organisation that aims to highlight scientific contributions by Africans in STEM disciplines and provide avenues to connect, share ideas, support and collaborate.
Cynthia Okoye
Cynthia Okoye is a Pharmacology PhD Candidate and a Gates Cambridge scholar at the University of Cambridge. In 2018, she earned a BA (Hons) in Chemistry with a concentration in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Williams College, Massachusetts where she completed a year-long honors research project on characterizing the effect of clinical and synthetic missense mutations on an enzyme that confers resistance to beta-lactam antibiotics.
In 2017, she was a summer undergraduate fellow at Upstate Medical University. She has also interned at National Institutes of Health (NIH), where she optimized a low-cost and sensitive protocol for mycoplasma detection in malaria parasite cultures.
In addition to her research background, She has served on various committees. She was the 2020-21 co-president of the African Society of Cambridge University (ASCU) and also co-founded and led Africans in STEM, an organisation that aims to highlight scientific contributions by Africans in STEM disciplines and provide avenues to connect, share ideas, support and collaborate.
Olufemi Gbede
Femi Gbede is an alumnus of the University of Cambridge with a Master of Civil Law. He currently works as an Investment Fund Attorney at Fried Frank, New York. A 2016 delegate at the International Young Leaders Summit at the United Nations, Femi is also a Weinfeld fellow at NYU and advises on a wide range of market-defining transactions, traversing finance, M&A, and energy.
He currently advises on the formation and operation of U.S. and offshore hedge funds, fund of funds, venture capital and private equity funds. Also a delegate at the Global Youth Leadership Conference at the World Bank in 2017, Femi, in addition, routinely advises start-ups, and emerging growth companies, providing them with legal insights, and creative solutions to critical issues that push their businesses throughout their lifespans, from start-up to exit. He is very thorough, and detailed in his work.
He always pushes the envelope, and punches above his weight. His leadership credentials are stellar, as he has at different times been saddled by his peers, with responsibilities of leadership. Although a man of simple mien, Femi performs; he delivers; and you can always count on him.
In 2017, she was a summer undergraduate fellow at Upstate Medical University. She has also interned at National Institutes of Health (NIH), where she optimized a low-cost and sensitive protocol for mycoplasma detection in malaria parasite cultures.
In addition to her research background, She has served on various committees. She was the 2020-21 co-president of the African Society of Cambridge University (ASCU) and also co-founded and led Africans in STEM, an organisation that aims to highlight scientific contributions by Africans in STEM disciplines and provide avenues to connect, share ideas, support and collaborate.
Aisha Yusuf
Aisha Yusuf is a Doctoral student and a Gates Cambridge scholar at the University of Cambridge. Her interest in cancer research developed during the latter part of her undergraduate education. With cancer being a global disease and a major cause of mortality worldwide, there is an urgent need to speed up diagnosis and improve treatment. Her PhD project at the Medical Research Council cancer unit involves the identification of candidate biomarkers that could be used in patient risk stratification for oesophageal cancer.
As an aspiring Medical Oncologist, she wants to bridge the gap between scientific research and medicine to contribute to the global efforts of improving the clinical outcomes of cancer patients. Beyond her educational pursuits, she hopes to work on projects directed towards positively impacting the lives of people in her home country, Nigeria and by extension, the world at large.
He currently advises on the formation and operation of U.S. and offshore hedge funds, fund of funds, venture capital and private equity funds. Also a delegate at the Global Youth Leadership Conference at the World Bank in 2017, Femi, in addition, routinely advises start-ups, and emerging growth companies, providing them with legal insights, and creative solutions to critical issues that push their businesses throughout their lifespans, from start-up to exit. He is very thorough, and detailed in his work.
He always pushes the envelope, and punches above his weight. His leadership credentials are stellar, as he has at different times been saddled by his peers, with responsibilities of leadership. Although a man of simple mien, Femi performs; he delivers; and you can always count on him.
In 2017, she was a summer undergraduate fellow at Upstate Medical University. She has also interned at National Institutes of Health (NIH), where she optimized a low-cost and sensitive protocol for mycoplasma detection in malaria parasite cultures.
In addition to her research background, She has served on various committees. She was the 2020-21 co-president of the African Society of Cambridge University (ASCU) and also co-founded and led Africans in STEM, an organisation that aims to highlight scientific contributions by Africans in STEM disciplines and provide avenues to connect, share ideas, support and collaborate.