Lifelong entrepreneur guides MBA students

Anne Guerrant shares lessons from athletics, business, and philanthropy in W. P. Carey's Executive Connections program.

Anne Guerrant was just a child when she met her first mentor, Don Klotz, a University of Iowa tennis coach who recognized Guerrant's aptitude for the sport.

"He coached me for free — my family didn't have money for tennis lessons — taught me to string rackets, and helped me secure accounts with sports equipment companies so I could sell rackets on the side," says Guerrant. "So, I got my start as an entrepreneur at 13 years old."

Guerrant would go on to earn global recognition in tennis. After graduating from college, she joined the recently established women's professional tennis tour and traveled the globe for nearly a decade. In 1976, she was ranked No. 11 in the world.

Those experiences helped shape Guerrant’s approach to business, leadership, and mentorship. Following her retirement from tennis, she co-founded the real estate company, Properties Corporation of America, with her husband, Terry, and together they established the Guerrant Foundation, which provides small business loans to women in impoverished countries.

In 2016, Guerrant became a mentor in the W. P. Carey Full-Time MBA Executive Connections program, which connects students with experienced leaders and entrepreneurs across a range of industries.

Now, after 11 years of mentoring business students, Guerrant is retiring from Executive Connections to make way for the next cohort of mentors. In celebration of her dedication to W. P. Carey students, Guerrant sat down with W. P. Carey News to reflect on what mentorship means to her.

Question: How did you get involved in Executive Connections?

Answers: I heard about the program from Ivan Johnson, a good friend who was one of the initial mentors. I became a mentor during the program's second year because I thought it would be fun! The program's head interviewed me, and I told her I had no experience climbing the corporate ladder. She said it was OK because students had been asking for mentors who were entrepreneurs and successful women. Now, the program has plenty of successful entrepreneurs and women mentors.

Q: How did you transition from professional tennis to real estate?

A: My husband was already in the real estate business when we met. After getting married, we bought a 12-unit apartment building with some of my tennis winnings — I was still playing on the tour — and I invested in several real estate limited partnerships. By the time I retired from tennis, I had some experience as a real estate investor, which led me to become an agent, a broker, and then an entrepreneur.

The transition to entrepreneurship was natural because tennis players are about as entrepreneurial as you can get. We live and die on our prize money — that's how we pay all our expenses.

Q: What prompted you to establish the Guerrant Foundation?

A: I felt there was a big void in helping people, especially women, in our global community — and as it turned out, I was right. Many of the people I knew wanted to do something to help women in the developing world, but we didn't know how. While visiting a micro-lending program in India, my husband and I were inspired by the stories of women who used small loans to start or expand businesses. It changed their lives. We were inspired to share their stories, and after returning home, we founded the Guerrant Foundation.

For 15 years, I devoted my time to raising money through events, speeches, media interviews, and donor meetings. I made 20 site visits to programs in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and developed a board of advisors of about 18 people, most of whom served for many years. We didn't lose many, largely because I'm not a time waster! We raised over $3 million and helped thousands of people in the world's poorest countries. It was a gratifying experience.

Q: Why is it important to you to mentor young professionals?

A: I enjoy the connection with young people: I learn from them and feed off of their energy. Graduate students are mature enough to have peer-to-peer relationships, and I consider them my friends. I liked to keep the mentorship informal and get to know mentees over lunch or by going on hikes together.

I also encouraged my mentees to talk to other mentors, because I felt that if they could learn from somebody, they should go for it. If the student had a field of interest I knew nothing about, I would connect them to someone who did.

Q: Are there any mentorship experiences from Executive Connections that stand out to you?

A: I had a mentee who was one of the smartest, most competent students I'd ever worked with, but she didn't get a job until nearly six months after graduation. All of her classmates had landed jobs while she was left on the sidelines, and her confidence was faltering. I checked in on her regularly to offer words of encouragement, and when she finally landed her six-figure job, she thanked me for sticking with her. I found that gratifying.

Q: Is there a common piece of career advice that you passed on to your mentees?

A: I have two strengths: helping students learn how to present themselves, and providing investment advice.

I have done a lot of public speaking — I made it to the gold level in Toastmasters — so I coach my students on that and their elevator pitches. I once had a student who had a habit of upticking, which made all of her sentences sound like questions. She'd had around 14 interviews and had never been invited back. While I don't know if the upticking was the reason, she did end up getting a great job at Dell after we addressed it.

I also help my mentees with investment advice, and have presented several seminars about personal finance to student clubs. I wish someone had done that for me, because it would have saved us a lot of mistakes we made with our money. Unfortunately, personal finance is a taboo topic. Most people don't talk about it — but I do, and some mentees still check in with me about their 401k and investment choices.

Q: Why is it important for people to give back to the next generation through mentorship?

A: I have a saying, which is 'experience is the best teacher, but it doesn't have to be your own.' We have so much experience and knowledge to share, and it's gratifying to share it while saving young people a lot of aggravation. Also, I really enjoy being around them, and I learn from them, too. A few years ago, a student showed me how to use ChatGPT — that was a big favor he did for me.