About us

Why Diversity Matters

“Diversity and inclusion are essential to everything we do at Nielsen. That’s why I took on the role of Chief Diversity Officer in addition to CEO. When we operate in a culture that is diverse and inclusive, innovation flourishes, our clients win, and employees are engaged and collaborate to bring the best that Nielsen can offer to the communities we measure.

At the end of the day, fostering diversity and inclusion isn’t just a good thing to do—it’s crucial to the success of our business and all business.”

David Kenny, CEO and Chief Diversity Officer

OUR VISION AND MISSION

At Nielsen, diversity and inclusion are integral parts of the organization’s DNA. By diversity, we mean far more than the diversity you can see; we value diversity of thought, experiences, skills and backgrounds. It’s our ability to create a culture of inclusion—whereby we value, encourage and promote the various thoughts, opinions and insights of our diverse workforce that enable us to grow and continuously provide clients with innovative solutions.

We are committed to fostering an environment where the differences in ethnicity, gender, gender identity or expression, age, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, education and religions of our employees are appreciated and embraced. Our emphasis on respecting and valuing the differences in perspectives and backgrounds ensures that inclusivity is reflected throughout the culture of our company and how we do business.

HOW WE’RE DOING IT

At Nielsen, we focus on systematically integrating inclusion and accountability into the full employee experience through three focus areas: talent, culture, and accountability.

Talent

We believe that diversity in people and ideas allows us — and our clients — to be successful. We’re focusing on driving impact by increasing diverse representation among associates, enacting diverse slates, hiring from diverse talent pools and expanding our inclusive hiring practices.

Culture

We’re building a globally inclusive and impactful culture here at Nielsen where everyone reaches their full potential. We’re having bolder and more candid conversations about issues that are important in building a more inclusive culture. Our objective is to open the door to talk about what we are not talking about (but should).

In the spirit of challenging ourselves to improve our practices, we’re also actively working to mitigate biases at all levels of our organization and re-image our ERGs by creating local Inclusion Impact Teams in all of our major offices around the world and holding all people managers accountable for participating in our employee resource groups.

We don’t only want to bring in new diverse talent—but we also want to focus on growing our in-house diverse talent through global mentoring opportunities and the Diverse Leadership Network (DLN), a 15-month leadership development program designed to strengthen and diversify the leadership pipeline at Nielsen by identifying, developing, and accelerating a more diverse group of top talent.

Accountability

At Nielsen, we feel that everyone is accountable for building our inclusive culture. We challenge ourselves with a daily commitment to seek diversity in any way that we can, and we use data to make sure that we’re staying true to our promises. In fact, just this past year, we’ve made formal commitments to help us stay on track with building diversity. On International Women’s Day this year, our CEO and CDO David Kenny, signed the LEAD (Leading Executives Advancing Diversity) Network Pledge, which lays out a plan to drive the advancement of women at Nielsen.

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Our Global Non-Discrimination Policy

Nielsen is committed to reflecting the diversity of the clients, communities and markets we measure within our own workforce. We exist to count everyone and we embed inclusion and diversity into all aspects of our workforce, measurement and products.

We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action-Employer, making decisions without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability status, age, marital status, protected veteran status or any other protected class. Our global non-discrimination policy covers these protected classes in every market in which we do business worldwide.

Learn more about how we are embedding diversity and inclusion in everything we do by visiting the Nielsen News Center.

WE CREATED A FIVE-PRONGED APPROACH TO FURTHER OUR DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION EFFORTS AT NIELSEN:

ACCOUNTABILITY

Our goal is to use measurement to increase awareness of our performance by periodically tracking and trending progress using both quantitative and qualitative metrics. To do this, we have created a business-level scorecard to track and trend key performance indicators (KPIs) regarding representation, retention, promotions, supplier diversity spend and diversity training, as well as, Employee Resource Group (ERG) engagement which is reviewed during a dialogue with senior leaders regarding how to further the infusion of diversity and inclusion  into Nielsen’s DNA.

CAREER DEVELOPMENT

Aligning with the Nielsen Experience: Be Yourself, Make a Difference and Grow with Us, we are focused on creating and enhancing all facets of career development. In 2013, we created the Diverse Leadership Network, an 15-month leadership development program designed to strengthen and diversify the leadership pipeline at Nielsen by identifying, developing, and accelerating a more diverse group of top talent. The program includes continuing education, Nielsen executive-led workshops and case studies. Additionally, each participant is paired with a senior leader as a coach for the 15-month program duration.

RETENTION

Our business success depends on the diversity of our workforce—diversity of skills, backgrounds and experiences. To create an environment where employees feel they can be themselves, we have created global volunteer organizations—ERGs to provide an outlet for professional development, community outreach, education and assistance with recruitment/retention. We have seven ERGs: AAL (Asian American Link), ADEPT (Abled and Disabled Employees Partnering Together), HOLA (Hispanic Organization of Leaders in Action), N-GEN (Nielsen Generation), PRIDE (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Allies), SABLE (Sustaining Active Black Leadership and Empowerment), SERV (Support and Employee Resources for Veterans) and WIN (Women in Nielsen). Employees need not be a member of a diverse population to join an ERG; all employees are welcome and encouraged to be a member of any ERG.

SUPPLIER DIVERSITY

Diversity and inclusion is about innovation and growth. Nielsen’s supplier diversity program seeks to engage diverse suppliers in an effort to do just that—help us innovate and grow. Our nationally recognized program has been celebrated for its use of formalized metrics, sharing best practices and a training initiative, which advances diversity not just across Nielsen’s internal business units but throughout the community.

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EDUCATION

In order for the entire organization to align on the importance of diversity and inclusion as a business imperative at Nielsen, we partnered with a diverse supplier to provide foundational training for all people managers, entitled “Managing an Inclusive Environment,” and for all employees, entitled “Working in an Inclusive Environment.” These trainings, offered globally, allows us to use the same terminology and definitions for diversity and inclusion at Nielsen:

  • Diversity: Variety of abilities, skills, experiences and cultural backgrounds.
  • Inclusion: To value and leverage differences to achieve superior results.

Our ERGs also host events and thought leadership reports through the Diverse Intelligence content series, which we use to discuss Nielsen consumer research data and findings about specific diverse groups.

We carry out our five-pronged Diversity and Inclusion strategy in accordance with our Connect The Dots Vision

CONNECT THE DOTS VISION

EMPLOYEE RESOURCE GROUPS

Our ERG Program is an inclusive, global program with more than 7,000 active members that network across all business areas and geographies to work on our diversity and inclusion goals. These ERG members grow an inclusive culture at Nielsen, drive business growth and innovation through D&I, increase ERG participation at all levels, and enable associates to be themselves to reach their full potential.

SCROLL OVER THE MAP TO SEE THE ERG PROGRAMS IN EACH COUNTRY. (KEY BELOW)

DIVERSE INTELLIGENCE SERIES

Our Diverse Intelligence Series is an annual collection of insights, based on the latest consumer trends from our multiple measurement verticals spanning from retail to entertainment. What started seven years ago as a series dedicated to multicultural consumers (African American, Asian American and Hispanic), today has expanded to include current trends among veterans, LGBT+ and disabled consumers.

We have three External Advisory Councils (EACs), comprising business and community leaders as well as industry experts, that represent the African-American, Hispanic/Latino, and Asian Pacific-American communities. The councils share their views on how Nielsen can better recruit, represent and reflect the unique purchasing and viewing habits of the multicultural communities in the U.S. We also have long-standing relationships with other community organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), U.S. Business Leadership Network (USBLN) and HeroZona. These groups are part of the collaboration efforts of our Diverse Intelligence Series Reports.

The reports are circulated internally to our clients and also externally with the help of our U.S.-based Strategic Community Alliances and Consumer Engagement team who manages our community outreach. The reports’ content is also used in advertising campaigns and event sponsorships.

AWARDS AND RECOGNITION

  • Nielsen was named No. 16 on the 2019 DiversityInc Top 50, a prestigious list that ranks public and private companies on their commitment to workplace diversity. In addition, we were named to two speciality lists: recruitment and LGBT+ employees. In 2017, we were placed at No. 32 on the list, No. 41 in 2016, No. 42 in 2015 and No. 50 in 2014. 
  • Nielsen earned a 100% score on the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Foundation’s Corporate Equality Index (CEI) and was recognized as a “Best Place to Work for LGBTQ Equality” for the 6th consecutive year in 2019.
  • We also earned recognition for LGBT+ equality in Mexico in 2018, an equivalent honor to the HRC recognition in the U.S., for the second straight year. 
  • We were named the Top LGBT+ Supporting Employer in Poland by NatWest in the 2018 Polish Business Awards.
  • We were ranked #2 in Forbes’ 10 Best Employers for Diversity in 2019.
  • We were named the Top Company for Women and Diverse Managers on the Diversity MBA 50 Out Front list in 2018. In 2017, we placed No. 9; in 2016, we placed No. 4; in 2015, we placed No. 5; in 2014, we placed No. 18; and in 2013, we placed No. 22.
  • After several years of securing a score of 90%, we earned our first-ever top 100% score on the Disability Equality Index in 2019. Nielsen earned “Best Place to Work for Disability Inclusion” by the Disability:IN (formerly the United States Business Leadership Network) and a 90% rating on the Disability Equality Index for the third consecutive year.
  • Fortune and Great Places to Work named Nielsen as one of the best workplaces for diversity in 2017. We were also named to three additional Fortune lists: Top Workplaces in New York, Top Workplaces in Chicago and Top Companies for Consulting and Professional Services.
  • We were ranked 19th in the 2018 Inclusive Top 50 UK Employers List, a definitive list of UK based organizations that promote inclusion across all protected characteristics, throughout each level of employment within an organization.
  • We were named one of the 100 Best Companies for Women in India in 2018 for the third consecutive year by The Working Mother Research Institute and AVTAR.
  • Named the No. 7 Best Place to Work in Turkey by Great Places to Work in 2018.
  • Nielsen Colombia Named the # 21 Best Company for Gender Equality by PAR in 2018.
  • Inducted into the first annual Advancing Diversity Honors Hall of Fame at Consumer Electronics Show 2018.
  • Named a Top Company for African Americans and for Supplier Diversity in 2018 by Black EOE Journal.
  • Named a 2018 “Top Disability-Friendly Company” by Diverseability Magazine.
  • Named a Top Company for Asian Americans by Asia Society in 2018.
  • We were recognized as a Minority Business News Top 101 Corporation for Supplier Diversity.
  • We were named to the Women’s Enterprise Top 100 Companies for Women Business Enterprises (Supplier Diversity).
  • The National Organization on Disability (NOD) named Nielsen to its list of 45 organizations that have been selected to receive the 2017 NOD Leading Disability Employer Seal.

RELATED INSIGHTS

RELATED REPORTS

EXTERNAL LINKS

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