WIP Vilas Dhar (1)

‘AI could potentially transform every job on the planet’

A conversation with Vilas Dhar, president, The Patrick J. McGovern Foundation
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In this episode of Work in Progress, I am joined by Vilas Dhar, the president of The Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, $1.5 billion philanthropy advancing AI and data solutions to create a thriving, equitable, and sustainable future for all.

Advances in artificial intelligence are moving faster than our ability to comprehend their implications. Will these technologies enable inclusion and access to opportunity for workers and communities, or will they increase inequity?

Dhar sat down with me to discuss these questions earlier this month at the Changemaker Forum, part of the Global Inclusive Growth Summit in Washington, DC.

Before we got deep into the conversation about how artificial intelligence, machine learning, and ChatGPT will ultimately change how we work and live, Dhar felt it was important to shift our perspective a bit. While AI does have the power to disrupt, there is a more fundamental issue we should be looking at, he says.

“Before we think about what AI is, we have to center ourselves in the fact that we need to build a future where every person has dignity in their work. AI might come in and take some of the skills that are necessary to succeed in today’s world and make them obsolete.

“It may come in and create new pathways for humans to be productive, to be creative. If we don’t start from a question of what’s the dignified outcome we’re solving for, it’s too easy to get lost in the details.”

To get there, he says, we need to examine what it means to be a productive worker, someone who “finds a job where they both contribute and feel fulfilled, and then find something that so fundamentally transforms that.”

Says Dhar, “Now we face a moment where that abstraction is becoming real. AI could potentially transform every job on the planet.”

Listen here to find out how Dhar believes we should address that transformation in the workforce and preparing workers. You can also download the podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

Episode 269: Vilas Dhar, president, The Patrick J. McGovern Foundation
Host & Executive Producer: Ramona Schindelheim, Editor-in-Chief, WorkingNation
Producer: Larry Buhl
Executive Producers: Joan Lynch and Melissa Panzer
Theme Music: Composed by Lee Rosevere and licensed under CC by 4.0
Download the transcript for this podcast here.
You can check out all the other podcasts at this link: Work in Progress podcasts

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.