Did you ever wonder how to bring your analytics department to the next level? Do you want to help colleagues to network, learn or pass on their knowledge? And did you ever want to start your own mentoring program in a large corporation? Think no more, as I will describe in detail how we set up a mentoring program, Pair & Share, in REWE Group’s analytics department, with its 150 data scientists, data engineers, analysts and other data people. As one of Europe’s largest retail corporations, REWE Group owns and manages prominent supermarket chains such as REWE and PENNY, among many other subsidiaries. However, before Pair and Share there was no formal process for personal, technical or methodological growth within REWE Analytics. Although there are plenty of possibilities, further training and education was self-organized and fragmented. To increase growth among our colleagues and build and strengthen inter-team exchange, we introduced the formal mentoring program, Pair & Share.

This talk will cover a brief overview of REWE Group and our analytics department, who we are and what we do. This is followed by a description of why, while we found personal growth and training to be fine, we realized that we could do better with Pair & Share. Afterwards, I will explain how we planned the details of the mentoring program and defined the parameters like the matching process, time frame and how to recruit participants. As the first iteration of mentoring comes to an end in March 2026, I will share my experiences of the first six months of mentoring. This will include the kind of roadblocks we faced, how participants shaped their own mentoring experience and what pleasant surprises we encountered. As we measured participant satisfaction with regular pulse checks as well as many feedback sessions, I will conclude the talk with an overview of what went well and how we plan to do better with the next iteration of mentoring.