LDP Connect is a professional association focused on serving people who lead, manage or recruit for talent development programs for early-career hires (sometimes called “rotational programs”).

The organization was founded by Dan Beaudry, a former leadership development program recruiter and manager at Monster.com, who remembered wishing he’d had a network of other program managers who understood what he was going through!

In 2012, LDP Connect inaugurated the annual LDP Summit® – a best practices conference featuring case studies of innovations, group brainstorming sessions, benchmarking data on program practices, and networking & idea sharing.

With the input of the community, LDP Connect later launched the LDP Survey – a biennial assessment of how organizations manage and evaluate their development programs for early career hires. The LDP Survey captures data on retention, compensation, off-boarding, recruitment, evaluation, staff ratios, mentoring, budgeting and many other practices related to running development programs. The most recent survey contains data on 183 programs from 84 organizations. All participants receive a free copy of the results.

In 2017, LDP Connect announced the launch of the LDP Innovation Award.  Development programs are incubators for future leaders; but they also nurture innovative ideas in leadership development.  The LDP Award recognizes practitioners in the space who have brought innovation to development programs for early career hires.

In 2019, the LDP Connect Enterprise Council was formed, bringing together organizations with a strategic interest in growing and optimizing their early talent management programs and practices.  The Council meets regularly to establish benchmarks, commission research and devise standards to use in evaluating early talent program success.

In 2023, LDP Connect launched its first Graduate Development Program Leaders’ Summit (GDP Summit) in Europe. Each November, the event draws early talent professionals from across Europe and the UK for idea sharing and benchmarking.

We invite you to become a member of LDP Connect and enjoy access to the expertise of the community, including our rich resource library, member directory, discussion forum, programs directory, and provider discount program –  along with discounts to all our workshops, conferences and research.  Our membership directory puts a network of hundreds of peers in your pocket.  Our discussion forum is a place to get answers to your toughest questions, and share learnings. You are doing important work, and you are not alone!  Leverage the expertise of the community to make your programs better and your career more rewarding!

LDP Connect exists because of the many contributions its stakeholders have made over the years. We welcome the feedback of the development program community, and adapt our offerings to meet your most pressing needs.

Welcome!