S&P Global Pakistan and TiE Islamabad Launch Project Elevate: A Three-Year Mentorship Initiative to Develop 600+ Future Leaders

Pakistan’s youth unemployment problem has a familiar shape too many graduates, too few structured paths into real careers. On July 13, 2026, S&P Global Pakistan and TiE Islamabad tried to chip away at that gap with the launch of Project Elevate, a three-year mentorship programme aimed at more than 600 young Pakistanis.

It’s not a scholarship. It’s not a job guarantee. It’s something narrower and, its backers argue, more durable  sustained mentorship from working professionals, delivered over years rather than a single workshop.

S&P Global Project Elevate: A New Mentorship Bet on Pakistan’s Youth

S&P Global Project Elevate was unveiled in Islamabad as a joint initiative between S&P Global’s Pakistan operations and TiE Islamabad, the local chapter of The Indus Entrepreneurs network. The programme is structured to run in three annual cohorts, each bringing in roughly 200 participants.

Over the full three-year run, that adds up to the “600+” figure both organisations are using to describe the programme’s reach.

Participants won’t be limited to fresh graduates  the stated target pool includes university students, early-career professionals, aspiring entrepreneurs, and freelancers, a deliberate attempt to reflect how varied Pakistan’s actual workforce has become.

What Project Elevate Actually Offers Participants

Strip away the announcement language and Project Elevate breaks down into four concrete components:

• One-on-one and group mentorship with senior professionals from S&P Global and the wider TiE network, aimed at real-world guidance rather than generic career advice
• Corporate readiness training covering professional communication, leadership fundamentals, and navigating a formal workplace
• Career development workshops focused on high-growth sectors — financial services, technology, and data analytics in particular
• Networking access to S&P Global’s Pakistan leadership and TiE’s broader entrepreneurial community

That last point matters more than it might sound. In a job market where referrals and networks often outweigh formal applications, structured access to senior professionals is arguably the most valuable — and hardest to replicate — piece of the offer.

Who Is Running Project Elevate — S&P Global and TiE Islamabad’s Track Record

This isn’t S&P Global Pakistan’s first mentorship bet. In December 2024, the company launched ElevateHER, a three-year programme targeting 1,000 women and girls for employability through freelancing, entrepreneurship, and job placement, run with the U.S.-Pakistan Women’s Council. Before that, S&P Global’s Million Women Mentors programme mentored 20,000 women across Pakistan between 2020 and 2023, with a focus on STEM careers.

Mujeeb Zahur, Managing Director of S&P Global Pakistan, has been the public face of both efforts. On Project Elevate, he framed it as a deliberate bet on human capital: “Project Elevate is a strategic investment in the people we believe will drive economic value both locally and globally,” he said.

“We are committing our expertise, because we truly believe in Pakistan’s talent pipeline and creating an ecosystem that will give individuals the platform, mentorship and exposure they deserve.”

Atta Rehman, Senior Regional People Advisor at S&P Global Pakistan, pointed to the softer outcomes the programme is chasing. “At S&P Global, we believe that people are the most powerful driver of organizational success,” he said.

“Project Elevate is designed to give participants not just skills, but visibility, confidence, and a professional community that stays with them long after the program ends.”

TiE Islamabad brings its own institutional weight to the partnership. The chapter was inaugurated in June 2008 by then-Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani, who at the time positioned it as a government-recognised “think tank on entrepreneurship.”

Nearly two decades on, TiE’s Islamabad chapter counts thousands of members and charter members drawn from Pakistan’s entrepreneurial and corporate ranks — precisely the pool Project Elevate will draw mentors from.

Why This Mentorship Push Is Landing Now

Pakistan’s degree-to-employment pipeline has been under strain for years, with graduates routinely outpacing the formal jobs available to absorb them.

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Corporate-backed mentorship programmes have become one of the more visible private-sector responses to that gap — cheaper and faster to deploy than large-scale hiring commitments, but harder to measure in terms of actual outcomes.

Project Elevate’s design tries to address the measurement problem head-on by locking in a three-year structure rather than a one-off event. That translates into jobs, promotions, or founded businesses for its 600+ participants will only be verifiable once the first cohort completes its cycle — something worth tracking as the programme unfolds.

Implications for Pakistan’s Talent Pipeline

For S&P Global, Project Elevate slots into what the company describes as an enterprise-wide commitment to learning and leadership development — the same rationale it has applied to ElevateHER and the Million Women Mentors initiative.

For TiE Islamabad, it extends a mission the organisation has pursued since 2008: connecting aspiring professionals with people who have already built the careers or companies they’re chasing.

The real test isn’t the launch announcement — it’s retention. Mentorship programmes in Pakistan and elsewhere have a mixed record of keeping participants engaged across multi-year commitments.

If Project Elevate’s first 200-person cohort sees strong completion and measurable career movement, it could become a template other multinationals operating in Pakistan look to replicate.