{"id":11320,"date":"2026-11-06T20:00:57","date_gmt":"2026-11-06T20:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/06\/when-men-sponsor-women-lessons-from-americas-governors-businessday-ng\/"},"modified":"2026-11-06T20:00:57","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T20:00:57","slug":"when-men-sponsor-women-lessons-from-americas-governors-businessday-ng","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/06\/when-men-sponsor-women-lessons-from-americas-governors-businessday-ng\/","title":{"rendered":"When men sponsor women: Lessons from America’s governors – Businessday NG"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2026The US election results show Nigerian employers what real sponsorship looks like and what it costs.<\/em>\n<\/p>\n

Set aside the politics of this week\u2019s United States midterm elections and read the results the way an HR director reads a succession plan. At least 17 women will serve as governors in 2027, about a third of the total and a new record, according to the Centre for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. That is a talent pipeline story, and it should interest every Nigerian boardroom where capable women are still described as \u201cnot quite ready\u201d.\n<\/p>\n

Every first is a hiring decision.
Keisha Lance Bottoms of Georgia will be the first Black woman to serve as governor of an American state, and Deb Haaland of New Mexico the first Native American woman. Georgia, Minnesota, Ohio and Tennessee each chose their first woman governor through Bottoms, Amy Klobuchar, Amy Acton and Marsha Blackburn. In HR terms, each result is a selection panel accepting a profile that it had never appointed to that role before.\n<\/p>\n

That should retire a familiar objection: when an organisation says it has never had a woman in a role, it is describing its history, not its candidates. The candidates have proved their competence over their gender.\n<\/p>\n

The same results also carry a caution, because the number of women in the US Senate is set to fall even as the number of governors rises. Any HR leader who has watched a balanced graduate recruitment intake thin out will recognise the pattern. Inclusion is measured in progression and retention, not in the group photograph in the annual report.<\/p>\n

Career moves that would worry a CV screener
As Alli Kushner observed in Forbes, these women treated their careers as a series of moves rather than a ladder. Klobuchar and Blackburn left long-held senior positions for roles with direct authority. The title looked sideways, but the decision rights went up.\n<\/p>\n

Peggy Flanagan and Juliana Stratton, both deputies, did not wait to inherit the top job and pursued a different open role instead. Only 15 of 98 former women lieutenant governors have become governors. Many Nigerian professionals know this seat well, having spent years acting in a role with a performance worthy of the title but carrying a payslip that has not heard the news.\n<\/p>\n

Bottoms stepped away from a senior post before returning to a bigger one. Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala\u2019s path through the World Bank, Nigeria\u2019s finance ministry and Gavi to the World Trade Organization tells a similar story closer to home. Our recruitment systems, however, still reward the straight line and ask the career break to explain itself.\n<\/p>\n

The good men were sponsors, not mentors.
A mentor gives you advice in private, while a sponsor spends his reputation on you in public. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker did the latter for Stratton, who was his own deputy. He backed her move out of his team within a day of her announcing it, and he stayed the course while she trailed for months. How many line managers release their best talent with such enthusiasm, rather than discover at appraisal time that she is \u201ccritical to the current team\u201d? Others discover it during an exit interview, when she has found greener pastures, most likely with a commercial competitor that has a bigger vision and a fatter wallet.\n<\/p>\n

Barack Obama\u2019s endorsement of Bottoms called her a friend, but it rested on her record, which is how good sponsorship should sound. Donald Trump publicly urged Julia. Letlow to run before she had entered her race, which every HR professional will recognise as the tap on the shoulder that many women never receive. That these allies stand on opposite sides of American politics makes the point stronger: sponsorship is a leadership behaviour, not a political position.<\/p>\n

Sponsorship is, however, an accelerant rather than a substitute, because Blackburn won her party\u2019s nomination without Trump\u2019s endorsement. A sponsor can open the door, but he cannot do the job.\n<\/p>\n

What Nigerian employers and professionals can do now
Nigeria\u2019s most visible leadership table tells its own story, with women holding about 4.5% of National Assembly seats. Employers need not wait for that number to change, because succession is already within their gift.\n<\/p>\n

Professionals should judge their next role by the authority, visibility, exposure and results it offers, not by its title, and measure its trajectory against their long-term aspirations: the masterpiece, not the sketch. They should also ask allies for something specific, such as a named recommendation or a board introduction. The work speaks for itself, but it still needs a mouthpiece.\n<\/p>\n

Male leaders should sponsor named women, speak for them in rooms they will never enter, and let go of strong deputies when a bigger opportunity appears. It takes nothing away from their expertise; on the contrary, it demonstrates their ability to nurture and showcase talent.\n<\/p>\n

HR teams, for their part, should publish succession slates, track progression by gender at every level and assess non-linear careers on evidence of impact. They should also make sponsorship a leadership expectation and requirement, with a place on the scorecard.<\/p>\n

The lesson from America is not about who to vote for; it is that talent rarely rises by waiting to be noticed, and that organisations rarely change by waiting for talent to insist. When the next senior role opens, whose name will you say out loud, and what stake are you prepared to put on it?\n<\/p>\n

Jennifer Oyelade is the Director of Transquisite Consulting Group, an HR strategy and executive search consultancy operating across the UK, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and the UAE.<\/p>\n

\n

Related News<\/h4>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n\t
\n\t\t\"Add
\n\t<\/a>
\n\t
\n\t\t\"Follow
\n\t<\/a>\n<\/div>\n

Source: <\/p>\n

Businessday NG<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2026The US election results show Nigerian employers what real sponsorship looks like and what it costs. Set aside the politics of this week\u2019s United States midterm elections and read the… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11321,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}