How P&G's Mentorship Framework Helps Support Its Modernization Roadmap
For Procter & Gamble, mentorship is a core component of its digital transformation strategy.
The company has created a structure that supports digital modernization efforts, such as AI enablement, through several mentorship opportunities, including a CIO technical advisory board and upskilling relationships, according to a recent blog post.
CIO Technical Advisory Board
P&G uses this board, composed of senior-level technologists across various backgrounds, as an internal think-tank to analyze short- and long-term tech trends.
This group functions as a direct sounding board for the company's chief information officer and other senior executives, helping leadership to better understand the impact of external technologies one to three years down the road.
According to P&G, it has so far helped the company define AI governance and agentic frameworks as well as research the potential for quantum computing in the consumer goods industry.
Seba Borgnia, the board's leader and P&G's chief enterprise architect and engineering leader, said in a statement that this approach helps match technology to unmet business needs.
"We use this group not just to qualify the technology itself but to inform our leaders on the art of what's possible," she said.
Building Cross-Functional Success Through Mentorship
In addition to the board, P&G also implements a digital mentorship program, which launched last year within its baby care product supply operations, to provide early- to mid-career employees with upskilling opportunities.
The employees are informally paired with members of the company's senior leaders, giving them access to hands-on coaching and digital tools. In the last year, the program has already seen benefits across a wide range of use cases.
An employee within HR, Cem Canikoglu, was paired with Michal Foltys, a digital transformation leader at P&G who could help him automate reporting tasks.
"Today, instead of spending hours to generate some of our reports, we are now spending minutes to get the data we need and turn them into actionable insights for our business," said Canikoglu, HR senior director for global baby care product supply.
Julia Semenchenko, senior director of supply network operations for the company's baby care business in Europe, partnered with digital mentor Daniel Dolz to apply AI within a recent business event and help to expand her fluency in AI.
"His guidance on AI has been particularly valuable; he not only shared high-quality resources, both internal and external, but also sparked actionable learning," she said. "This mentorship has been a catalyst in advancing my leadership journey in the digital space."
