Resilience and effective leadership are crucial for entrepreneurs to navigate challenges and lead their business to success. With this in mind, we held the first workshop on resilience and leadership on 8 November for the participants of our 2025-26 Mentorship Program for Ethnically Diverse Entrepreneurs at the Hive Poho, where four women entrepreneurs from our community further enriched the dialogue with their unique insights.
Aligning Personal Values with Brand Identity and Resilience Strategies
To help mentee entrepreneurs build their business brands, the workshop commenced with an exploratory activity for the mentees to identify and understand their own personal strengths and core values.
Some mentees said they would examine how their personal values intersect with their non-negotiable brand values, fostering a deeper self-awareness. Other mentees shared stories of values misalignment, which helped them see the tension and potential between their business and themselves.
The session progressed to building a personalized resilience strategy, where participants learned about some common cognitive distortions that they may be vulnerable to.
Here, Mehroo Turel, a seasoned business coach and founder of Mums@PLAY, offered insights on how to avoid these distortions and better utilize one’s own strengths. Stressing the importance of having well-defined boundaries between the brand and one’s identity as an entrepreneur, Mehroo said: “Don’t always take comments made on your business too personally. Your thoughts are not you; they’re like clouds — dark, heavy, and sometimes loud — but they always pass if you don’t hold on to them.” She also shared mindfulness techniques, including body awareness and visualizing thoughts, to maintain calm and composed during stress.
Mentees were then tasked with crafting their “personalized 24-hour crisis scripts”, which will help them navigate stressful times by using their core values as rapid guides.
Just as important to resilient leadership are flexibility, teamwork, and leading by action, according to the second guest speaker, Marilyn Simon, Managing Director at Vinnitsa HK. Elaborating on building loyalty and allowing talents to shine, Marilyn said: “People are the most important part of any business. When you truly know your team — not just their job titles, but who they are — loyalty naturally follows.”
Envisioning Leadership Styles and Team Dynamics
The workshop culminated in reflections on leadership, where mentees mapped their demonstrated strengths to potential leadership styles and considered team composition to complement gaps.
Here, Sneha Roy and Emeline Sandt, the co-founders of a collective space as well as mentee entrepreneurs of our 2024-25 Mentorship Program, discussed the difference between one’s leadership style and working style. “The way you lead yourself isn’t the way you lead others. With my team, I’ve learned to be nurturing rather than controlling,” said Emeline. Sneha and Emeline also highlighted the importance of balancing workplace structure with freedom for employees.
Support Our Work in Uplifting Under-resourced Entrepreneurs
Having equipped mentee entrepreneurs with the necessary skills, knowledge, and mindset to navigate and thrive amid uncertainty, our 2025-26 Mentorship Program will convene participants on 6 December for a mid-point check-in, where we will be facilitating the sharing of resources and knowledge before returning in January next year.
FSI’s 2025-26 Mentorship Program is funded by the Hong Kong Club Foundation and the Drs Richard Charles and Esther Yewpick Lee Charitable Foundation. Our efforts to empower under-resourced, ethnically diverse entrepreneurs rely on partners including ICF Hong Kong Chapter, the Hive Hong Kong, FundFluent, and Africa Center Hong Kong. Contact us at cbs@shared-impact.com to contribute to this mission.
*This blog post was written by Candy Tan, Communications and Marketing intern at the Foundation for Shared Impact (FSI) during the Fall 2025 semester of the Impact Lab Course.
