On the Work in Progress podcast Josh Elder Siegel Family Endowment discusses jobs in rural America
On the Work in Progress podcast Josh Elder Siegel Family Endowment discusses jobs in rural America

A strong digital infrastructure is crucial to creating jobs in rural America

A conversation with Josh Elder, vice president and head of grantmaking, Siegel Family Endowment
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In this episode of Work in Progress, Josh Elder, vice president and head of grantmaking for Siegel Family Endowment, joins me to discuss the importance of tech connectivity in creating access and opportunity to jobs in rural America. We also talk about the overall impact technology is having on society, education, and the way we do our jobs.

For more than 10 years, the Siegel Family Endowment, a private family foundation, has supported a wide range of grantees that are focused on understanding and shaping the impact of emerging technology on society. Of late that conversation has be more and more about artificial intelligence.

“The way that we’ve been thinking about it is understanding how AI is impacting work today, both in terms of the impact it is having on employers, but – and this is where we want to elevate this conversation – the impact of AI on workers,” Elder explains.

He says the big questions they are examining with their grantees are whether AI is being done to workers or is AI being done with workers. “Oftentimes when you hear about AI in the workforce, everyone immediately jumps to thinking about is AI going to replace people? Is AI going to displace people and reduce jobs? And we know we’ve seen some of the early stats and some of that is happening.”

He adds that as AI tools and products continuing to evolve, it is important to make certain the workers’ voice is being listened to and integrated into those tools “to really mitigate some of the harms and the bias that we unfortunately are seeing day-to-day with more and more emerging technology taking place and impacting workers, especially marginalized workers in the workforce.”

Early on, our conversation in the podcast turns to jobs in rural America and the importance of access to a solid tech infrastructure, connectivity, and broadband.

“If you don’t even have the fundamental elements of connectivity, you’re already facing obstacles and challenges that are putting you behind. That’s something that we’ve really been looking at – especially in places like rural America – to really create the connectivity and digital infrastructure that’s needed to then connect to both the physical and social infrastructure that you’re going to (need) in the workforce,” says Elder.

As rural America faces a “brain drain” of younger adults moving out of their communities to find jobs, that digital infrastructure takes on more importance.

“I speak as someone who grew up in rural America. I felt like I had to move out in order to be able to find the opportunities or pursue opportunities for things that I was interested in. I know some of that, unfortunately, is still the case.

“What we are trying to do, especially with CORI (Center on Rural Innovation) and others, is look at how can you create a rural innovation ecosystem and hubs that can provide more opportunities, either for entrepreneurship or for other companies to be developed, that can actually support and provide opportunities for citizens there and also grow talent pipelines.

“There’s amazing talent that exists in these rural communities. They often just don’t have connection to the opportunities to be able to build out for success. We’re really interested in looking at the connection between education, workforce, and infrastructure needed to be able to scale these opportunities at a rapid rate,” says Elder.

Josh Elder goes into much more details on how Siegel Family Endowment is working with grantees to address these issues, the importance of building equitable access to jobs and education, and how we all should have a voice in tech’s impact on society.

You can listen to the entire conversation here, or wherever you get your podcasts. Or you can catch the interview on my Work in Progress YouTube channel.

Episode 329: Josh Elder, vice president & head of grantmaking, Siegel Family Endowment
Host & Executive Producer: Ramona Schindelheim, Editor-in-Chief, WorkingNation
Producer: Larry Buhl
Theme Music: Composed by Lee Rosevere and licensed under CC by 4
Transcript: Download the transcript for this episode here
Work in Progress Podcast: Catch up on previous episodes here

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.