© Copyright 2024 by Structural Unemployment, LLC dba WorkingNation
Laura helps oversee and contributes to the editorial content for WorkingNation. Laura is an experienced journalist and a member of the Producers Guild of America whose work has appeared on CBS, NBC, Fox, Lifetime, the History Channel, HGTV, and A&E. She has a deep interest in nonprofit programs that create opportunities for underserved communities. Laura has directed a children’s visual arts program that focused on bringing the arts to low-income kids. Most recently, she served as Director of Outreach for Streetlights, a training program that provides opportunities for young adults of color to find behind-the-camera work in the entertainment industry.
Follow Laura at LinkedIn and Twitter. Read her articles here.
Senior Editor, Editorial
Michael helps oversee and contributes to the editorial content for WorkingNation. Michael has worked in both journalism and corporate communications, handling social media duties in both contexts. His news background includes a 15-year stint as a writer and editor for ABCNews.com, where he served as a reporter and feature writer, managed the weekend and evening news shifts, ran the home page, and worked as a news editor overseeing reporters’ daily work from concept to publication. Earlier in his career, Michael produced television news segments as a liaison between The Star-Ledger and News 12 New Jersey, and he worked newspaper jobs in the New York metro area, including being a stringer reporter for The New York Times while attending Columbia Journalism School.
Jonathan oversees all design integration for WorkingNation. He also directs documentary shorts, including our Do Something Awesome series, which highlights solutions to workforce issues. In addition to his role here, Jonathan works as a commercial director and is a Co-founder of Don’t Panic Productions. He has collaborated with Nike, Reebok, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, amongst other prominent brands, and he has worked with studios such as HBO, Netflix, Hulu, and FOX. Fluent in Spanish, Jonathan also works on campaign spots across the Hispanic/Latin-American markets. The Miami native began his career as a cinematographer after earning an MFA in film production at the University of Southern California.
Producer, Editorial
Deidra is a veteran broadcast journalist, producer, writer, and senior manager based in Chicago with a deep passion for telling stories that have a positive impact on the local community. Most recently, Deidra spent 20 years at WBBM-Channel 2 as the senior manager in charge of planning and special coverage. Prior to that, she was News Director at WWJ radio (the CBS-owned station) in Detroit. She started her career at WBBM-AM in Chicago, working her way up from production associate to managing editor. Currently, she writes a weekly Black history retrospective for iHeartRadio. Deidra is a graduate of the University of Illinois-Chicago
Contributing Writer, Editorial
Victoria is an award-winning journalist and early adopter of multimedia storytelling, using video, audio, broadcast, print, online, and social media platforms to maximize the impact of her reporting and writing. A long-time investigative reporter, newsroom trainer, and communications pro, she has also taught convergence journalism at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, University of South Florida, and University of Tampa.
Stephanie produces video content for WorkingNation. Her latest independent producing project is the critically-acclaimed true crime documentary Abducted in Plain Sight. The film has been reviewed by Rolling Stone, Vice, and Newsweek, which called it “the craziest true crime documentary on Netflix.” Other producing credits include the feature horror/comedy Killer Party and the comedy web series Dog Park. She also works with the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department as an actress for their Homicide School and Interrogation Training Program.
Follow Stephanie at LinkedIn.
Editor, Video Content, Development, and Production
Mengfang is an award-winning film editor with over eight years of wide-ranging experience in editing more than two dozen short and feature-length narrative films, documentaries, and TV shows for theatrical release, broadcast, streaming and social media. She moved to Los Angeles to pursue her career in post-production after working behind the camera in China. Mengfang earned her Bachelors in Radio, Television and Digital Communication from Liaoning University, followed by her Master of Fine Arts in Cinematography and Film/Video production from Loyola Marymount University.
Production Coordinator, Video Content, Development, and Production
Jennie is a production coordinator at WorkingNation. She is a creator, writer, and producer of short films, literature, and for the internet.
After earning her BFA from NYU, she lived and worked in theater in Paris and Amsterdam as a performer and teacher. After moving back the United States, Jennie worked in production as a producer in various independent film projects and in sketch comedy. Combining her love for teaching and dance, she went on to own a Pilates studio for over a decade. She is a mother to two young children, a cat, and two dogs.
Follow Jennie at LinkedIn.
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.
