“Opportunity@Work is a workforce development, social enterprise nonprofit focused on the 70 million workers in America who do not have a four-year degree who are skilled through alternative routes. We call them STARs—Skilled Through Alternative Routes,” explains Shad Ahmed, COO of Opportunity@Work.
Ahmed continues, “We are an interesting nonprofit in that we don’t do direct service provision, but really our focus is on supporting the many other partners, organizations, and companies interested in STARs and STARs’ talent, and finding ways for them to invest in pathways for STARs so that more STARs get onto pathways for great middle-wage jobs of the 21st century.”
Degree requirements often deny access to those without them. “So, the case a generation ago, you could have an entry-level job in sales and that could be your gateway to a great middle-wage job today. Those entry-level jobs in sales are called sales account representative roles, and 80% of those have a degree requirement. So, we’re putting up structural barriers that are shutting out many workers from giving getting into those first entry level jobs,” says Ahmed.
Employers need to realize the depth of the talent pool of those with high school diplomas, but without college degrees. “We’re cautiously optimistic. This is hard stuff. No one knows the answers. And so, we’re anticipating over the next several years a lot of experimentation, trying to get to the structural hard parts to solve this so that STARs are seen as a talent pool—just as college grads are seen as a talent pool that companies are resourcing in the same way,” says Ahmed.
Click here to learn more about Opportunity@Work.
WorkingNation—a collaborating partner of the ASU+GSV Summit—sat down with Ahmed in San Diego as part of our #WorkingNationOverheard social media series.
Hear from more innovators in education and tech in the public, private, and nonprofit spheres attending the ASU+GSV Summit 2021 here.
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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.
