Sarah Bright, Head of L&D at Darktrace, built a manager development program from nothing. They trained 75% of their global managers across 20 cohorts in under two years. What follows is the practical detail behind how her team of three did it: the framework they built, how they measured success, and what she would tell anyone starting from the same place.

How the need was identified

Darktrace has seen rapid growth in employee count. With that growth came a pattern that will be familiar to many fast-scaling businesses: talented individual contributors being promoted into management with little to no formal training. “There wasn’t a shared language in what a manager is at Darktrace,” Sarah explained. People were drawing on whatever examples of management they had encountered, which varied enormously.

The signals were coming from multiple directions. Employee engagement survey data showed strong demand for career development and clarity on progression. Requests for training were arriving directly and frequently. When Darktrace’s first Chief People Officer joined in 2022, the case for a structured manager development program was already well-evidenced. Getting buy-in was less about persuasion and more about pointing to what was already visible.

The tiered curriculum

The program is built around four tiers, each designed for a distinct stage of the management journey.

Manager Essentials is for aspiring managers and people who are considering leadership but are uncertain what it involves. It runs as a 12-week coaching program, focused on building understanding and peer connection before any formal transition happens.

Manager Energize is an in-person format covering practical best practices: feedback, coaching, motivation, and getting the most out of your people. It is designed for newer managers and also works well for those at any level who want a focused refresh and the chance to learn from peers in a smaller group setting.

Manager Excellence is the core of the program, built first, and aimed at managers who have had no formal training. It establishes a common foundation across the business and covers the competencies Sarah’s team identified as most critical: self-awareness, change leadership, motivation theory, difficult conversations, and coaching skills.

Manager Elite is for the most senior leaders. It operates at a strategic level, connecting individual functions to company goals, applying systems thinking, and developing a senior leadership network that can work collectively toward those goals.

One practical design tip Sarah shared: at the opening of each Manager Excellence cohort, participants are asked to write down everything they hope to get from the program. “99% of the things are things that are already on the program,” she said, “but it’s a nice sense check that you’re still on the right page.” It takes very little time and creates immediate engagement from people who might otherwise arrive passively.

How success is measured

Sarah shared that almost 90% of participants reported feeling more prepared to step into their leadership role after completing a program, and with 75% of all managers covered, the reach makes the case for continued investment.

Sarah’s team pulls from multiple sources rather than relying on any single metric: post-program surveys to understand what landed and what to adapt, the L&D section of the employee engagement survey for longer-term tracking, and regular conversations with HR business partners to gather qualitative signals from across the business. Anecdotes matter here too. One example Sarah mentioned: a senior leader who had always been quite reserved completed the program and went on to accept a public speaking invitation. Those kinds of stories, tracked and shared, build the internal narrative around the program’s value and help sustain momentum with stakeholders.

The approach reflects something worth holding onto: you do not need a perfect measurement framework before you start. Building the habit of gathering signals from multiple directions, quantitative and qualitative, is more useful than waiting to get measurement right in advance.

Sustaining the community after the program ends

Sarah was clear that the program is not designed to be a single event. “This isn’t a one-and-done development program. We are here to support you.”

To keep that going, the team built a Manager Community with two main elements. 

1. The first is a set of ongoing digital forums via Teams and the company intranet, where updates, ideas, and relevant content are shared to keep managers connected between formal touchpoints. 
2. The second is a quarterly live event called the Manager Meetup. Each session includes a direct briefing from executive leadership on current priorities and what managers should be taking back to their teams, a mini masterclass from an external speaker on a timely topic (recent examples include leading through change and inspiring hybrid and remote teams), and a manager panel where three leaders share their experiences and take questions. 

This format ensures that no matter where the manager may be located globally, they are part of the same conversation.

The core principle: chase action over perfection

When asked what advice she would give to anyone building a manager development program, Sarah was straightforward. 

“Chase action over perfection. People can spend a lot of time trying to perfect something. But the best thing you can do is get something as good as you can get it, get it out there, and then iterate as you go. Be agile, understand the changing needs of the business and improve, and that’s how you get the snowball effect.”

Darktrace’s program started as a two-day in-person event in Cambridge. The team ran the same program virtually to test how it would scale globally. They took it to APAC, then the Americas, then EMEA. They built additional tiers as the need became clear. Twenty cohorts later, the program has become something participants actively advocate for and look forward to.

For any L&D team starting from scratch, that trajectory is a great example. The program that exists today could only have been built by getting that first in-person event off the ground. 

To hear the full conversation with Sarah Bright, listen to the How to Make a Leader podcast. You can connect with Sarah on LinkedIn or learn more about Darktrace.