Tech-Pipeline
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Building a tech talent pipeline

The Capitol Region Initiative: A case study in generating new jobs
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Want to attract a $200 billion tech giant to your city? Then you might want to follow the lead of the “Capital Region.” Also known as the Baltimore-Richmond and northern Virginia-Washington, D.C. area, the Capital Region (specifically Arlington, Virginia) won the Amazon HQ2 (along with Long Island in New York City), which is estimated to bring more than four million square feet of office space and 25,000 new jobs to Northern Virginia alone.

Information technology and software developers are aplenty in Silicon Valley, for sure. But according to a recent McKinsey and Company study, other seemingly unlikely cities — like the Capital Region has proven — can attract the tech industry too.

Learn by example, then replicate

With almost three-quarters of a million new jobs in computers, engineering, science, and math anticipated in this next decade, the employment outlook isn’t just good news for job seekers. Obviously, cities with employers that attract these workers can also expect a big economic boost.

By assessing their community, collaborating with their stakeholders and articulating their goals, the Capital Region’s initiative has become a case study that other metropolitan areas can emulate to build their tech talent pipeline, according to McKinsey’s report.

Assessing the results

The Capital Region analyzed its graduate tech talent and found that it actually ranks in the top three in the nation — behind only the San Francisco Bay area (not surprisingly) and the New York tri-state area. As the industry strives to prioritize diversity and inclusion, the region does well: it surpasses the Bay area, Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Seattle when it comes to the number of women tech graduates, and attracting and retaining female talent.

It also found its educational institutions graduated with a large number of quality talent. But, after graduating, the analysis showed that these new professionals left the area for San Francisco or the New York City area. While almost the same number of graduates relocated to the Capital Region from other areas, the study called the region a “talent trader,” in other words, importing as much talent as it exports.

When it comes to specialties within tech jobs, the Capital Region leads the U.S. when it comes to the percentage of workers in information security, more than double its closest competitor (San Francisco). The study credits the local defense industry. But when it comes to artificial intelligence (AI), the numbers flip — and then some. The west coast attracts more than 40 percent of AI workers, while the Capital Region keeps only four percent.

Armed with this data, the region and its stakeholders were able to strategize and take steps to win the Amazon bid. The study identified three tactics that the region used — and other areas can use — to develop a tech talent pipeline.

Align talent strategy with economic vision

Just like a company develops goals and the steps to accomplish them, cities can do the same. The Capital Region identified innovation and local talent development as goals and took steps to attract and retain talent.

These steps obviously worked. In announcing its HQ2 selection, Amazon officials cited, through a media statement, they were “looking for a location with strong local and regional — particularly in software development and related fields — to continue hiring and innovating on behalf of our customers.”

Adopt a data-driven approach

Know your strengths and gaps. Identify your resources. Develop a timeline and track your progress. These steps can mitigate challenges and help manage and gain support from your stakeholders.

Spur collaboration

Partnerships with industry and educational institutions aren’t uncommon. Both parties should consider them to be long-term relationships that can benefit both parties. Universities, colleges, training programs and more can work with industry to constantly update their curriculum to maintain relevancy, ensuring graduates get the skills they need to qualify for jobs.

It becomes a cycle of success for the community.

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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.