Accelerate Your Professional Growth Through Mentorship
Structured networking for career advancement and success.
Accelerate Your Professional Growth Through Mentorship
Structured networking for career advancement and success.
About The Council
Mission
Our mission is to create a community of professionals of color interacting in an organized fashion to create vital networks for the dissemination of information critical for success in a variety of careers.
Professional Development Networking
The Process
Our leadership team has a trusted network of mentors and through our website we screen mentees and new mentors to match and connect serious individuals and students with successful, helpful mentors in a variety of professions. The goal is to foster professional development within communities of color, something that is lacking among many black young professionals but predominant in many other cultures and communities. In doing so we use concepts like Structured Mentorship and Structured Networking to pass along essential information to mentees that is not taught in schools yet is critical for success in a given profession.
Giving Back
Using our model, professionals of color interested in giving back can use their time wisely, effectively and efficiently in passing along essential information necessary for success to the next generation of professionals of color.
A Professional Development Network
Sectors and careers we help through professional development:
- Health Care
- Real estate
- Finance
- Entrepreneurship
- Sales
- Marketing
- Management
- Education
- Technology
- Law
- Business
- Hospitality
Structured Networking
We schedule virtual and in-person professional development events where pre-selected introductions of mentees and mentors take place. Our staff will e-mail you prior to one of our scheduled events to inform you if we have identified a professional that you should meet. The connection will either be someone that is serious about learning more about what you do or is looking to provide assistance in helping you reach your goals.
Network Before You Need Work
Goals of the Professional Development Network
- Reinforce the importance of networking.
- Create a curriculum for specific fields to use as a guideline for mentees.
- Establish lines of communication for mentees with experienced professionals for mentorship and advice before challenges and obstacles arise.
Structured Mentorship
We have structured the process of mentoring, helping to create a post-graduate roadmap or curriculum for the next generation of professionals of color.
The curriculum in high school, college and graduate school is set for students. Students know that once they are accepted to college, take the recommended classes and get grades that they will get the degree they are pursuing. But what is not certain is if they obtain their degree, they will land a job in their field.
Most students are not taught what they need to do to get a job or start a business. Students are not given the tools that will help them begin to develop a career. Their degree may be necessary for their career to get started but there is very little to no assistance in understanding how to land the job or start the business that they have been working so hard for.
The Council is designed to help in creating the map that many of us do not or didn’t have.
Leadership Team
Thomas A. Mason, MD
Dr. Mason earned his M.D. from the University of Illinois College of Medicine and completed his residency in Internal Medicine at Rush University Medical Center and Cook County Hospital.
Dr. Mason worked at the Cook County Health and Hospitals System (CCHHS), the third largest public hospital system in the country. He spent 14 years as a board-certified internist with an emphasis on primary care and preventative medicine and led the charge to implement EHRs across the system. His work at CCHHS allowed specialists and primary care providers to streamline and optimize EHR use, improving clinical workflow and system efficiency.
Bonnie "Pete" Thomas, MD
Dr. Bonnie W. Thomas is an internist in Chicago, Illinois. He received his medical degree from Chicago Medical School/Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine Science and has been in practice for more than 20 years. Dr. Bonnie W. Thomas has expertise in treating hypertension & high blood pressure, diabetes, asthma, among other conditions.