This is part of a recurring series of stories aimed at educating readers on how to break into advertising and marketing, or land a new position. Read the last installment about how to start an ad agency here.

Native Tongue Communications Founder-CEO Marissa Nance credits much of her success to mentorship—and not solely from senior industry executives. In a panel during Ad Age’s Leading Women event earlier this month, she was joined by one of her mentors, Alex Cuevas, senior VP and director of talent at BBDO Worldwide, to discuss how Cuevas, who is junior to Nance, helps the agency owner advance in her career.

Industry veteran Nance—who spent nearly 30 years at Omnicom, which owns BBDO—said it was first suggested she mentor Cuevas. But Nance also saw value in doing it the other way around. 

“Even though I knew what I wanted to do in my company, as a person, I could use someone to come in and say, ‘You’re OK,’” she said during the panel. “And that’s what this woman does every single day. Whether I get a text that says, ‘Hey, girl, hey,’ whether I get a random call, whether I get tackled in Cannes from behind. These are the things that really help keep me going, and keep me focused and grounded. For me, that’s a wonderful piece of mentorship helping me keep a clear mind so that I can give my agency and my team the clarity they need.”

For senior executives seeking advice from younger professionals or junior employees looking to guide seasoned veterans, Ad Age has put together this guide to help you start and navigate these partnerships.

Also read: 21 summer ad interns you should know about

Why reverse mentorship

Reverse mentorship, or the process of junior professionals mentoring more senior executives, is becoming more critical to the industry today as marketers look to reach younger consumers through new means and navigate an increasingly complex social media landscape.

Major marketers are focusing attention on popular social platforms such as TikTok to target younger generations, including Gen Z and Gen Alpha, and showing up authentically and reaching these young cohorts is necessary to resonate with them. Reverse mentorship has become increasingly important to help more seasoned ad executives understand younger audiences and guide them in their marketing decisions, said Evan Horowitz, CEO and co-founder of Stagwell-owned Movers+Shakers, a creative agency that has had a lot of success getting campaigns to go viral on TikTok.

“Where I see a lot of marketing work go off track is [when] you can see that a more senior person reviewed the work, edited the work [and] missed the mark culturally and then it goes out and it's like a brand that’s trying to be cool and [it comes off] super awkward,” Horowitz said. Movers+Shakers has “intentionally given the megaphone to our younger talent [and] built a piping to connect those insights to more seasoned and skilled strategists in terms of how to bring that to life.”

But Horowitz said the importance of mentorship extends past the need for better marketing insights; there are a lot of learnings more seasoned executives should be taking from younger professionals, including best practices for how to foster a good workplace culture. “If you want to create a workplace that attracts, retains and empowers younger employees, you have to listen to what they want,” he said.

Also read: Gen Zer’s advice for a healthy work-life balance

What mentors can bring

One area young professionals can really help more senior folks is in learning the language of Gen Z and Gen Alpha, so they can then speak to them authentically in ads.

Ha Hoang, a strategist and Gen Z employee at Movers+Shakers who is part of the agency’s culture squad, said she often advises senior colleagues in understanding the slang of Gen Z and Gen Alpha (everything from bussin’ to brat summer).

Hoang also advises more senior executives on when and where it is appropriate for a brand to join in on the conversation

“Something may be hot for the younger generation but it may not translate when a random brand goes in there and it just doesn't align with their values,” Hoang said.

Dang is another shop that has woven insights from younger generations into its model. The shop was formed by Karan Dang, Walmart’s former head of brand creative, and Shruti Dang, former senior product designer for software company BlackLine, to help marketers target Gen Z and Gen Alpha consumers.

“Surrounding ourselves with younger professionals definitely offers invaluable insights,” Shruti Dang said. “They’re deeply plugged into current culture, lingo and inside jokes, providing a fresh perspective on emerging trends and platforms that can differ significantly from a millennial mindset.”

She said the agency always encourages younger employees to present their idea: It recently launched two content series aimed at unpacking various Gen Z marketing insights and delivering them to advertisers in the same type of short, snackable content that resonates with this generation. 

The idea for the snackable format for those series came from a Gen Z employee, Shruti Dang said. “During our research, a Gen Z employee questioned the relevance of traditional white papers. As a result, we shifted our output to a more social-first, bite-sized content series.”

The snackable content videos have generated 624,287 impressions and 304,688 unique views on social between July 22 and Aug. 14, Shruti Dang said.

“Get involved in relevant Discord servers, dive into subreddits and explore Substack communities,” Shruti Dang also advised more senior executives looking to learn from younger generations.

How to start a reverse mentorship

A good way to find a mentor, whether it be someone who is junior or senior to you, is through industry groups or formal programs at your company.

Cuevas and Nance met through a program started by Debra Lee, former CEO and chairman of BET. In 2010, Lee founded her Leading Women Defined summit, which helps connect C-suite women of color and last year launched a program for women in the early and mid-level of their careers. Cuevas said it was through that early- and mid-level-focused program that she was linked with Nance.

Nance said that she was drawn to mentor Cuevas originally because they both worked at Omnicom.

Cuevas helps lead a mentorship program at Omnicom-owned BBDO and advised professionals at the Ad Age panel (video below) to consider these types of programs to find a mentor. She said always try to at least find a mutual connection to help forge a mentorship. 

“It’s important to build some rapport,” Cuevas said. “There are so many people who just send out cold emails. I would not take the cold email approach.”

At Movers+Shakers, reverse mentorship is guided by the agency, but it also pops up among employees more organically.

Horowitz said Movers+Shakers has fueled reverse mentorship through its “culture squad,” a team of younger professionals who gather culture and social media insights to inform every campaign the shop develops. He said the agency has the culture squad report insights weekly to the entire shop and every campaign must go through this team. This naturally prompts senior executives to seek advice from younger employees, Horowitz said.

“We’ve been able to wire our agency to have really smart, culturally plugged-in early career folks and then connect them systematically and strategically with more seasoned marketing veterans so that we can take the insights and awarenesses understanding from our younger team,” Horowitz said.

How to encourage curiosity 

Horowitz said it’s important for senior executives to approach junior professionals from a place of “curiosity,” because it’s easy for a more senior vet to be “dismissive” of a younger employee.

“I see my own impulse to be dismissive and say, ‘Well, that’s wrong. That’s not the right way to do it,’” he said. “But how can we be curious and try to understand what’s driving that?”

When senior executives come to Hoang from a place of curiosity, she said she is always receptive.

“If it comes from a place of genuinely wanting to understand what my perspective on a certain topic or idea is, then that makes me feel more welcome to share my ideas,” Hoang said. “Having moments of realization from the senior person makes me feel validated; whenever they’re like, ‘Oh, that's interesting. I’ve never thought about that.’ That makes me feel empowered to share more examples in the future.”

For junior employees figuring out how to navigate mentoring someone more senior, Hoang advised them to be confident in their strengths and generational differences.

Zambezi Principal and CEO Jean Freeman said seasoned executives often feel like they “should know more or [be] better than younger professionals.”

“But this stigma lacks the nuanced understanding that advertising changes with each generation,” Freeman said. “New talent brings a fresh perspective on how advertising works and sometimes this is where you find the most insightful creative ideas. As a more experienced leader, it could be easy to not take the time or make a conscious effort to give younger team members the chance to be heard and valued, but if you can do that, you’re opening up so many opportunities for growth not just for the individual, but also to stay relevant.”

How to tackle stigma and other challenges

There is a certain level of stigma that exists around more seasoned executives seeking the help of junior professionals.

Shruti Dang said senior professionals often feel “seeking advice from a younger professional might undermine an executive’s authority. However, this perspective overlooks the value of diverse viewpoints and continuous learning,” she said.

Horowitz said this idea of reverse mentorship is newer. When he started in the industry, senior executives were not necessarily seeking the advice of younger employees, and there is still hesitancy from veterans to accept this advice.

Still, he reiterated the need for reverse mentorship, especially now.

“The pace of change technologically and socially has increased so much that the generations are so much more different than they used to be,” Horowitz said. “It's necessary for corporate leaders to do extra work to really understand the differences.”

Other general challenges exist in any mentorship, including around how to make time for it.

Cuevas said that not making the mentorship “so formalized,” where you’re having to schedule meetings on some sort of regular basis, helps with time management.

“I always make time in my day for those little pockets,” she said, whether it’s a simple text or quick call versus a formal meeting.

How to know if the mentorship is working–and what to do if it's not

At Ad Age’s Leading Women luncheon, Cuevas and Nance expressed the need to find a mentorship that feels natural and beneficial to both parties for it to be successful.

Cuevas advised mentorship pairs to be upfront from the start about what they are trying to get out of the relationship because that creates clear goals they can then track. She advises mentorship partners to ask each other if they want a more long-term relationship or if they’re just seeking guidance for a short time or for one specific reason.

But Cuevas also advised professionals to identify issues and get out of a relationship when it isn’t working.

“You can be transparent, [and say] ‘I don’t think this is gelling’ or ‘I got what I needed, so I'll see you less,’” Cuevas said. “That’s where I think it’s so important to set the expectation and be clear. When something doesn't work, there’s no point in dragging it out.”

When deciding to end a mentorship, Nance added: “Be sincere, be appreciative and step away and give each other the gift of the time they need.”