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Ernest Baynard

Founder, Meridian Hill Strategies

Ernest C. Baynard IV, Advisory Board, has spent more than 20 years successfully building and managing a wide array of public affairs campaigns for a diverse group of clients. Prior to founding Meridian Hill Strategies in 2002, he served in the Clinton Administration as Special Assistant to the HUD Secretary and on the National Advance Staff of Vice President Al Gore. Baynard has also served as Communications Director for U.S. Representatives Mike Forbes (D-NY) and Mike Honda (D-CA). Additionally, he served as a guest lecturer on media and politics at the United States Military Academy, Georgetown University and Johns Hopkins University.

With a strong focus on innovation and technology, Baynard and Meridian Hill Strategies work with some of the nation’s top companies, universities and organizations to create a powerful voice for them inside the Beltway. Over the past 21 years, Baynard has built an industry-leading public affairs firm that optimizes a diverse suite of professional services that enables its clients to win on critical federal issues and achieve success and rapid growth.  

As a lawyer and communications expert with a strong background in technology and coalition building, Baynard brings a diversified and innovative approach to his work. Baynard and his firm currently represent a number of innovative companies providing solutions to the U.S. government in the areas of defense, homeland security, transportation, trade, communications, clean energy, and health care. The firm also has a strong focus on leveraging a bipartisan, technology-driven approach to level the playing field and creating greater opportunity for underserved communities and persons. These efforts include a wide range of successful efforts to empower military spouses, veteran- and minority-owned companies, and many others. He and the firm have also built and managed some of the most impactful and successful grassroots and media campaigns in the nation in the past ten years.

An avid supporter of the music and the arts, Baynard has produced a number of live music events in association with progressive issues, candidates and events including the Democratic National Convention. His work to bring progressive ideals and musicians together includes collaboration with acts such as Jason Isbell, The Rebirth Brass Band, The Drive-By Truckers, Justin Jones and others. Mr. Baynard is also proud to serve as a strategic advisor to the Bruce Lee Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement of the legacy of legendary martial artist Bruce Lee. The firm is currently engaged in a nationwide effort to promote the innovative use of the Internet to better enable artists, technologists, and difference makers in their missions to tackle some of society’s most challenging problems.

Mr. Baynard earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Tulane University and was awarded a Juris Doctor with Honors from the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law. He was admitted to the practice of law in California. He lives in the Washington, D.C. area with his wife and their four children.   

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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.

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