Copy-of-Chike-Aguh-WIP

Education beyond high school: The new standard for the 21st Century

A conversation with Martha Kanter, executive director, College Promise
-

Education has long been seen as a critical pathway to prosperity. With COVID-19 hitting both the education system and the economy, how do we ensure young adults are able to access quality higher education opportunities, ones that will lead to good careers?

College Promise believes making education free for the first one or two years after high school for everyone is a step in the right direction. It’s been the mission for the nonprofit since before the pandemic, but College Promise is even more committed to seeing it come to fruition.

“It’s a pretty simple mission. We want to get people far better prepared and technically adept for the workforce of the 21st century,” explains Martha Kanter, executive director of College Promise and my guest in this episode of the Work in Progress podcast. “The idea is for business and education (to) partner together to create the kinds of pathways that students need, so they get real world experience and can actually harness the skills and training they need to be successful in their communities.”

Kanter says that education should be available for young adults just out of high school and older adults who now find themselves unemployed in this recession. “There’s all kinds of public and private partnerships that are happening. The Promise is a galvanizing tool. It brings partners to the table. The public private partnerships are really essential to keep students motivated and on track.”

Kanter goes into detail on how College Promise works, how the partnerships work, and some of the upskilling opportunities now available to anyone looking for postsecondary education. You can listen here, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Episode 141: Martha Kanter, Executive Director, College Promise
Host: Ramona Schindelheim, Editor-in-Chief, WorkingNation
Producer: Larry Buhl
Executive Producers: Joan Lynch, Melissa Panzer, and Ramona Schindelheim
Music: Composed by Lee Rosevere and licensed under CC by 4.0.

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.