CASE STUDY
AMD
“We chose MentorcliQ because of the reporting capabilities”
AMD Gained a 3X Increase in Promotions for Mentoring Participants
At AMD, their tagline reads: Together, we advance. For Lisa Graham, Sr. Manager of Talent Management at AMD and a 2023 MentorcliQ Mentoring Luminary Award winner, this comes to life through her dedication to mentoring. As the driving force for AMD’s global mentoring strategy, mentoring means connections for Lisa.
“AMD has a strong mentoring culture just in everyday life. There is a huge appetite for mentoring,” said Lisa. “The hunger for continued development is really part of our DNA at AMD. We’re a company that is always looking for ways to overcome the next challenge and mentoring is really going to facilitate that process within the organization.”
We’re a company that is always looking for ways to overcome the next challenge and mentoring is really going to facilitate that process within the organization.
Sr. Manager of Talent Management
at AMD
Enterprise-wide Mentoring at AMD
What started as a small pilot mentoring program quickly grew into an enterprise-wide mentoring initiative. Lisa shepherded the mentoring program through rapid growth, bringing decentralized programs together as interest in mentoring increased throughout the company.
Today, she is building a single cohesive strategic plan for global mentoring across AMD. By expanding to an enterprise contract with MentorcliQ, AMD is now able to fully execute against this plan and elevate the power of mentoring to all employees around the world.
Providing opportunities for matches across geography, across business units, across functions: that is critically important.
“You’ve got to make sure that your mentoring program and your talent development initiatives and overarching talent plans and goals are all tied in together,” advised Lisa. Employees at AMD have consistently asked for mentoring over the years. By being able to offer this development opportunity to the entire global organization, Lisa knows it will help the company achieve some of their wider talent strategies.
“Providing opportunities for matches across geography, across business units, across functions: that is critically important. We do want our leaders to be sharing their talent across business units as it makes sense to do that. We want our employees to have that wider perspective that those sorts of matches will bring. It will definitely make them stronger,” said Lisa.
The incredibly talented team at AMD includes many employees who hold patents. “When you’re in a technology field, when you’re really on the bleeding edge like we are, so much of the information that people need to know and to share happens internally,” said Lisa. Mentoring provides the way for people to accomplish that as they connect with one another, share knowledge, and grow in their skills and careers. From Lisa’s perspective, mentoring is the right solution across the board.
Elevating Women Engineers
One program achieving impressive results is the Path to Fellow Mentoring Program. This 1:1 mentoring program is designed with 6-month relationships focused on elevating high potential women in the technical staff into the leadership ranks of Fellow. Launched in 2022, the initial cohort saw 20% of the mentees receive a rigorously vetted, merit-based promotion to Fellow. This was a 3X increase in promotions compared to recent years.
20%
of mentees received a promotion to Fellow
3X
Increase in promotions
Lisa aims to make sure that AMD has the right talent in the right roles at the right time. She also wants employees to be able to build the kind of career they want with AMD. Mentoring plays a big role in that.
“I really just want to make sure that mentoring is open to all employees at AMD. We have 25,000 people globally. People are excited about mentoring, so I just want to make sure that it’s something that everybody has the opportunity to engage in,” said Lisa.
Partnering with MentorcliQ makes a difference. “Being able to offer mentoring via software just makes it so much easier for everyone involved. You don’t have to deal with spreadsheets and…it really allows you to break down those barriers and silos between the organization. [You can] open up the relationship across country borders, across business unit borders, outside of someone’s personal network. How big are you willing to think? is really the only limitation,” said Lisa. Now that AMD has an enterprise license, she says the sky’s the limit for mentoring at AMD.
Being able to offer mentoring via software just makes it so much easier for everyone involved.
