The Women in Pharmacy Leadership (WIPL) Alumni Mentorship Program pairs recent alumni who identify as females with working or retired professionals in their field of interest, to help them move towards their leadership goals. In this series, Waterloo Pharmacy spotlights their experiences.
Diane Stanley-Horn and Stacey D’Angelo (Rx2012) were one of six mentor and mentee pairs who participated in the 2023 alumni mentorship program.
D’Angelo is a pharmacist, entrepreneur and founder of Your Simple Health, where she works directly with patients to help optimize, streamline and reduce medication use. Her unique career path required a mentor with a business background.
I’m not leading a team, I’m not a CEO, manager or director of a large company. This thought process almost held me back from applying to the program. I needed to reframe my own thoughts on what it means to be a leader and innovator in the pharmacy profession.
Stanley-Horn is an entrepreneur who co-owned a sustainable health and social services software company. Her background in business and entrepreneur knowledge was the perfect mix to empower D’Angelo to achieve the next steps in her journey.
“Women have all the leadership potential that men do,” says Stanley-Horn. “We need more women in leadership, we need to close that gap.”
D’Angelo applied to the mentorship program looking for someone to help guide and support her in her new innovative business, to be a sounding board in this new chapter of her career.
Stacey D'Angelo
Diane Stanley-Horn
Q&A with Stacey & Diane
UW: What was your favourite part of the program?
DSH: Working with Stacey has been a lot of fun. The program is well structure with the intention to provide support to both people in a flexible way. Getting to know her, understand her business and see her strategy develop has been very rewarding.
UW: What was your biggest accomplishment/take away from the program?
SD: The exercises in business development, planning and structure helped me create a clear goal and vision for my business that I struggled to define before the mentorship program.
DSH: This has been a great experience and a valuable use of my time. It has inspired me to support women more actively across my life.
UW: What would you like your mentor/mentee to know?
SD: Diane has been amazing. I am so grateful to have been paired with her. Her perspective has helped me look at business in a different way and has helped me grow as a founder and business owner.
DSH: Stacey is passionate and talented. It’s been a pleasure to help her clarify where she wants to go and why, with clear goals to help her along the way.
UW: What advice would you give future mentors/mentees?
SD: Everyone can use a mentor and can benefit from this type of relationship. I encourage all Waterloo pharmacy alumni who identify as women and who wish to build their leadership skills to apply as a mentee.
DSH: Mentors, if you are hesitant to apply because you feel there is not enough time or you can’t help someone, let me reassure you that the program is well structured to accommodate time constraints and you absolutely do have a lot to offer a mentee.
We created the Women in Pharmacy Leadership Program to build leadership capacity and empower women in pharmacy to achieve their full potential. To learn more about our alumni mentorship program visit our webpage.