Nielsen’s past mentoring programs lacked on-going, consistent access to mentors. Relationships were developed informally within existing networks and despite the localized efforts of our ERGs and business units, fragmentation and lack of consistency disproportionately impacted our diverse associates around the world.

Mentoring is a proven driver of engagement, skill development and diversity in management. To ensure that every global associate has ongoing access to a mentor, we launched our first cross-functional, international mentoring program—Nielsen Global myMentor.

The program is designed to be associate-driven with mentoring matches driven by the mentor and mentee preferences, which can include: business area, team, location, language, ERG membership and more.

Importantly, the associates can register anytime and each relationship lasts nine months with set milestones to ensure mentoring development goals are met, set action plans are carried out, and measurable progress is made. Mentoring partners can extend their relationship if they desire.

Global myMentor kicked off in June 2019 and within the first 8 weeks, nearly 15% of eligible associates signed up for the program. Since then, we have launched over 2,100 mentoring relationships and continue to add more on a weekly basis.