Nielsen recently launched its first-ever global, virtual leadership summit, WIN Rising Leaders. Led by the Women in Nielsen (WIN) Business Resource Group, the event featured keynote presentations, panels, micro-mentoring and skill development workshops for over 1,000 Nielsen associates from 37 countries.
The theme for this year’s conference was empowered women, who empower women and brought together +70 speakers and mentors who embodied this theme from both within and outside of Nielsen.
“These past couple of years have been challenging for everyone, and especially women and minorities. We’ve all been working in challenging environments that are constantly changing. As a result, we haven’t been able to get together, celebrate and share each other’s stories as often as we’d like,” said Sandra Sims-Williams, Chief Diversity Officer at Nielsen and executive sponsor of the Women in Nielsen Business Resource Group. “This summit offered us an opportunity to inspire each other, foster a sense of community, create new connections and most importantly – provide accessible leadership development opportunities to people at all levels of the organization.”
The great migration of 2020 to remote work changed everything from how employees prioritized their days, to how they learned and even their career paths. Women have been especially affected by the pandemic, setting back progress made toward gender parity in the workforce. According to recent calculations from the National Women’s Law Center, Women will need nearly nine straight years of job gains at last month’s level to recover the nearly 3 million net jobs they have lost since February 2020.
“If we want to make an impact and help close the gender gap, we can start right here in our own community,” said Laurie Lovett, Chief People Officer at Nielsen. “This summit is one of the many resources and professional development opportunities supported by our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Talent and Development teams to help close that gap.”
Today, 43% of Nielsen’s leaders are women, putting the company on track to reach its goal of 46% of women in leadership by 2023. Along with its renewed commitment to fight discrimination and its new values: Inclusion-Courage-Growth, Nielsen continues to take steps towards creating a more inclusive and equitable workplace for women. Recent investments includes the re-launch of its Diverse Leadership Network, an MBA-like development program for mid-career talent, LANDIT, a personsonalized career pathing technology designed to increase the success and engagement of women and diverse groups, and HIM For HER, an organization focused on accelerating boardroom diversity.
“When sketching out WIN Rising Leaders, we knew we wanted to create something that would address the needs of associates at all levels and also put Nielsen on the map as an academy company for women,” said Tuesday Hagiwara, WIN North America Co-Lead and Director of Communications at Nielsen. “The event required the support of executives across Nielsen, across the BRG community, and from so many of our allies and partners. The response to our request for support was an overwhelming, resounding ‘YES’.”
The event featured the following events and speakers, and also raised nearly $3.6K for Girl Rising, a global nonprofit for girls’ education and gender equity.
