A call to action: Time to rethink how we finance and develop workforce talent

U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation releases Talent Finance digital magazine

December 4, 2020

The national jobs crisis – triggered by a global pandemic – has exposed hard truths about the workforce and inequities in opportunity for individuals to develop the knowledge and skills needed to remain competitive.

It’s time to rethink our public-private approach to financing workforce talent, argues Talent Finance, an initiative led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation with its partners the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Greater Houston Partnership, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, and WorkingNation.

Talent Finance argues that there is an “undeniable truth that our current approach for financing and developing talent has perpetuated systemic and widespread gaps in equity and opportunity. In the new economy, talent is king. We need a talent finance approach fit for our time, not one built for a different era.”

The Talent Finance initiative details 16 recommendations to foster change. Its rethinking of talent development includes shared value and risk, expanded choices, affordability and fairness, equity, accessibility, transparency and accountability, and worker empowerment.

The Talent Finance Digital Magazine

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation has released a digital magazine in support of its call to action. It details the initiative and recommendations, and features interviews with business, education, government, and nonprofit leaders in support of the Talent Finance movement.

Talent Finance is made possible by funding from JPMorgan Chase, MSFT Philanthropies, Google.org, Cognizant U.S. Foundation, and Schmidt Futures.

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Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.