Why fertility matters at Criteo

At Criteo, our number one priority is ensuring the health and safety of our people. This includes supporting our employees when they undertake a significant personal journey involving their medical care and family planning.

As part of this commitment, we’ve partnered with Carrot Fertility to offer a complete, global fertility benefit to our permanent staff members. Carrot’s goal is to provide members with access to the best fertility care and trusted educational resources to make family forming easier and more accessible to all.

Our initial partnership with Carrot was a pilot scheme in the U.S. The reason for choosing the U.S? “Family forming and fertility services are becoming more common for employers to provide in the U.S. and are highly valued by employees, which was evident by increasing inquiries from our U.S. employees”, explains Courtney Hadden, Global Benefits Director, “and we chose Carrot because of its inclusivity and breadth of services compared to what we could implement through our health plan. Through Carrot, our U.S. employees were the first to benefit from inclusive fertility and family-forming services that cover all paths to parenthood — adoption, fertility treatments, surrogacy, and more. Following the success of this pilot, we’ve extended the benefits to all Criteo employees worldwide.

Funding, advice, and support

All Criteos can now request a personalized Carrot Plan to guide them through every step of their family planning journey – and we provide funds to pay for their fertility treatments and family-forming services.

As part of the Carrot service, our people have access to a variety of benefits. They can organize virtual chats with Carrot’s team of experts, including reproductive endocrinologists, urologists, adoption experts, doulas, midwives, LGBTQ+ family-forming experts, mental health professionals, and more. They benefit from exclusive discounts and fast-track appointments at top clinics and agencies. And they also have access to a library of educational resources produced by specialists, including articles and how-to videos. It’s about giving our employees the resources they need to make their journey easier.

Carrot’s program may also cover fertility education and assessments, such as fertility preservation (egg, sperm, and embryo freezing), IVF treatment, and donor-assisted reproduction services. What’s more, Criteos benefit from unlimited one-on-one consultations with experts for guidance and support, including helping to plan their journey, connecting them with experts, and sharing information on providers in their area.

Criteo reimburses 100% of eligible expenses, up to a generous threshold. After paying upfront for the service, Criteos just upload a photo of their itemized bill to get reimbursed.

Fertility and work life

Through Carrot, Criteo wants to give its employees the support they need at what can be a challenging time in their lives, both emotionally and physically. Rachel Scheel, our SVP of Global Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Sustainability, knows about the challenges of fertility and family planning, having personally experienced multiple miscarriages and invasive surgery over a five-year period before finally seeing success with the safe arrival of her little boy.

“I’m so proud we’re partnering with Carrot because my husband and I could have used the counseling and support during our own journey. This will mean so much to our employees and their partners!”, she says. Rachel was fortunate to have an understanding manager and a loving family backing her, but she acknowledges that it was often difficult to stay fully focused when at work throughout the loss and uncertainty she experienced. “I felt a kind of heaviness for almost five years where I couldn’t stop thinking about what was happening to me, and I had to find my own solutions”, she explains. “Many people and organizations are understanding about other major life events, like a separation or the death of a family member”, she says, “but fertility is often a taboo subject, not spoken about openly, with many experiencing it with little or no professional support.” That’s why Carrot is so important. “The program offers information and support, as well as counseling, legal and financial assistance which will be hugely beneficial during such a significant life experience for parents and parents to be.”