How companies develop leaders with Upskill
Context, what was done and what changed. In every case, with the breakdown behind each number.
Context, solution and result
Agribusiness company
14-month programme (Nov/2023 → Jan/2025)
With 35 years in the market, more than 500 employees and more than 20 branches, the challenge was to keep leadership aligned across an increasingly distributed business, with managers in different cities. Even with robust development initiatives in place, results fell short: it took more than content — real transformation in how people led.
1:1 mentoring programme, online and on-demand, focused on leadership succession, stress management and building resilience. Personalised tracks that adapt session by session, matched to the mentor best suited to each leader's profile, with progress and engagement measured throughout.
“Mentoring improved my day-to-day dealings with my direct reports, peers and superiors, and also how I know myself, discover my strengths and weaknesses and where I need to improve — my mentor guides me along the path to personal and professional growth.”
“I'm very satisfied to be putting into practice what I learned in mentoring. It was only once I became aware of this that I made the shift, to take more assertive actions.”
“[…] The mentoring sessions have helped me build resilience and a positive mindset, to not react or give automatic responses, to breathe, count to ten or drink some water before speaking up, to not give up, to value and find a purpose or reward in what I'm developing, to look at every bit of progress with enthusiasm and to lead with a growth mindset always.”
Business and technology consulting
21-month programme (Nov/2024 → ongoing)
Low leadership engagement in training and communication challenges between leaders and teams — especially a lack of empathy and assertiveness, at a time when it was important to sustain mental health care.
Selected the leaders whose development would most impact the business and rolled out a full 1:1 mentoring programme.
Real estate developer
18-month programme (Jan/2025 → ongoing)
No clear individual development planning, no family succession plan for the top executive, low leader engagement, communication noise and gaps in interpersonal skills.
Selected the leaders whose behaviour change would produce the fastest results and the leader in line for succession, with a full 1:1 mentoring programme + group mentoring, with human mentors.
Protega · Stefanini Cybersecurity
33-month programme (May/2022 → Feb/2025)
Fast growth with a need to develop new leaders, retain talent and build a sense of belonging during a period of significant change.
Group mentoring in the initial phase, keeping the programme running by pairing it with 1:1 mentoring for leaders and potential leaders.
“Our partnership with Upskill has been progressive, bringing expanded awareness and a priority on building a more present state, clarity of goals and fluidity in relationships — impacting the team's well-being, especially the leaders who already use the tools to sustain focus.”
Devio
High turnover and the challenge of developing leadership to engage and retain talent, in order to drive business growth, at a company 5 years into the market.
Dedicated 1:1 mentoring for the leaders who most needed support at the time, with mentor selection by profile.
“Upskill's work gave our leaders, already in the first month, a greater capacity to manage people, by developing the ability to handle their own emotions and, as a result, handle people better in challenging situations. Matching the right mentor to each leader was key to surfacing the most current needs of each journey.”
Oppencad
30 years in the software development market, needed to increase cohesion and stress tolerance across its teams.
Group active-learning mentoring on stress management and emotional intelligence, plus access to a partner wellness programme.
“I noticed that, over the course of the mentoring sessions, I became less anxious about results themselves, caring more about the journey to the end. The way the content is shared really helps with the coherence of what we're doing and why.”
What mentees say
“With mentoring, I was able to work through beliefs and habits that were very limiting. Today I have my mentor as a great advisor for my personal and professional questions.”
“The mentoring sessions helped me make more conscious decisions, increased my output and reduced my anxiety, and helped me better understand communication strategies.”
“Mentoring helped me discover what motivates me and set an execution plan for my goals, with practical mechanisms and daily reinforcement.”
“The most valuable development and investment I've ever made in myself. A journey of self-knowledge that shortens learning that could otherwise take years on your own.”
“The mentoring sessions encouraged me to understand my core values and live an intentional life. Today the programme is one of the foundations of my company's training for all members.”
“The most important thing for me was emotional reprogramming — reacting differently than usual. I learned to identify and trust my abilities, which helped with motivation and discipline.”
“I feel I'm making really good progress toward what I want to achieve, actually more than I expected — the whole process was quite surprising, maybe especially because I joined the company's leaders project without much prior knowledge, and the mentoring sessions have been helping me a lot.”
“There are many points of conflict I face day to day, and I've already found creative solutions together with my mentor and in group mentoring too. It's interesting to think of it as a framework for human relationships, since human activities produce objective results.”
“We're seeing visible progress, including in our own area. On GPTW index questions, we've improved a lot thanks to some learnings that come from mentoring. My mentor is amazing, an excellent professional. We're developing new skills. I even gave him a list of the skills that have been improving over the last few months, in almost 1 year of work.”
“The choice of mentor was based on a profile mapped out by one of your tools, not a personal choice of mine. But I wouldn't choose anyone different from her — she's helped me a lot.”
“I really liked [the mentoring sessions]. It makes you feel good about yourself so you can manage people, deal with people or complicated situations. I especially liked my mentor, who fit really well with my thinking and with what I needed, taking me to the root cause of my main problem and showing me several ways to solve that point.”
“Some of the benefits Upskill's work gives you are knowing how to deal with yourself, with your emotions, knowing how to control your emotions to deal with other people, whether employees or clients. Having more confidence and security in your work to know how to assert yourself or handle distressing/uncomfortable situations calmly.”
“With the perspective on resilience shared during mentoring, I feel much more secure handling moments of a lot of stress, whether personal or professional.”
“Mentoring combined with meditation and breathing practices gradually changed how I perceive day-to-day matters. I'd say I started to see the real scale of events more clearly, became more centered and even more civil in my daily life with friends and family. After practicing some breathing techniques, I noticed a significant decrease in anxiety and also an improvement in concentration.”
“I used to live focused, working very intuitively, without structure. After starting mentoring, I learned to organize myself to be more effective and have more free time and well-being. Personally, it gave me the tools to surpass myself, daily, since I became aware of my goals, which became measurable. I managed to put my life in order, and in the end, that made my routine much lighter and improved my quality of life, since I can do a lot more activities.”
“Group mentoring [applied to the team] was essential, not only to improve my team's performance and quality of life, but it also served as a great way to strengthen our relationship as a group and my relationship with them as their leader.”
“The mentoring sessions helped me sharpen my skills and see business "issues" from a new perspective. The sessions really contributed to me having deeper insights into how candidates and clients make decisions. A fine-tuning that helps me every day — including in personal relationships.”
Continuous measurement across the network, with the breakdown behind each number
The next case
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