The OLA Women’s Forum Mentoring Programme announces the professionals who will participate as mentees
More than 25 women from various theatres in Latin America will participate as mentees in the OLA Women’s Forum Mentoring Programme, a programme supported by the Chilean organization Mujeres Empresarias. During the second half of 2025, the selected women will participate in three personalized sessions in which OLA mentors will guide them on specific topics related to their professional development.
They work in areas such as technical direction, education, props, marketing, partnerships, and even archives, documentation, and museology, and come from theatres in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Spain, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay.
The 29 women selected as mentees for the OLA Women’s Forum Mentoring Programme will become the first generation of women to receive guidance and training from mentors and leaders from Ibero-American theatres part of the Ópera Latinoamérica (OLA) network.
This phase of the programme will run during the second half of 2025 and will consist of three personalized sessions in which the professionals selected as mentees will receive support and guidance from their assigned mentors in areas such as theatre management, stage management, administration and finance, human resources, communication and/or marketing, and other performing arts specialties.
“Although more than half of the theatres, festivals, and companies that are part of OLA are led by women, it is necessary to create spaces in which to foster new leadership and new forms of professional development among women. We believe that one of the best ways to do this is by fostering networking and collaboration among people, which are some of the values that characterize our network. This initiative, ultimately, is a call to action to tell many women that they are not alone in their professional development and that mentoring and synergy of talent among professional women in our industry is possible when we promote collaboration and best practices,” says Paulina Ricciardi, Executive Director of OLA.
The first stage of the programme was supported by the Mujeres Empresarias organization through training, coaching, and development of OLA mentors. Through work and support materials, knowledge, practices, and strategies were transmitted so that the mentors would have the tools to carry out mentoring.
“What OLA is doing is unique. The fact that women seeking to forge their careers and receive support and guidance from experts voluntarily participate in the creative industries across Latin America speaks to the urgency of identifying role models and recognizing role models who have paved the way for new generations. Having mentors of the caliber of Carmen Gloria Larenas, Andrea Caruso, Flavia Furtado, Silvana Moreno, and Yalilé Cardona, among many others, is undoubtedly a unique event that also validates the mission that OLA seeks to promote, fostering collaborative work among theatres, companies, and festivals in Latin America and the Caribbean,” says Nicole Forttes, entrepreneurship manager for Mujeres Empresarias.
The OLA Women’s Forum Mentorship Programme was organized by a selection committee tasked with evaluating the more than 40 applications received and then assigning the mentors to their respective mentees. Among the women who served on this committee is Trinidad Zaldívar, advisor and former head of the Creativity and Culture Unit at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
“I have had the privilege of accompanying a unique process: bringing together extraordinary women from the world of opera and the performing arts in Latin America, creating bonds that cross generations, countries, and disciplines. This mentoring network not only fosters professional growth but also opens paths of trust, leadership, and collaboration among those who make art their vocation. As evaluator for this process, I understood something painful: many women have grown professionally in solitude. This programme was born from the conviction that we don’t have to move forward alone. Today, the invitation is to build networks, not only out of solidarity, but because sisterhood is also a form of leadership. Women don’t ask permission to lead in the performing arts—we are doing it. This mentoring network is a concrete commitment to occupying and transforming those spaces,” Trinidad Zaldívar explains.
With these actions, the OLA Women’s Forum continues to consolidate its agenda of activities to strengthen support and encourage women’s participation in the performing arts, in addition to providing tools to develop women leaders in the sector.
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