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Opening Doors for Veterans to the Tech Industry

Helping veterans obtain the skills for a great career in tech

VetsinTech is a leading nonprofit dedicated to advancing career opportunities for veterans in the tech industry
A look at how the nonprofit VetsinTech works with its 20 chapters across the U.S. to advance career opportunities for veterans in the tech industry

Ikram Mansori, chief operating officer of VetsinTech, speaks with journalist Hari Sreenivasan about the personal and professional issues that veterans face while transitioning out of military service and into the civilian sector, as well as the opportunities and programs available to them.

VetsinTech is a leading nonprofit dedicated to advancing career opportunities for veterans in the tech industry. The organization consists of 20 chapters across the country and harnesses their coalition of tech companies to help transition veterans returning from active duty into tech careers. Each chapter offers tech-based programs in education, employment, and entrepreneurship that empower their network of 70,000 vets to pivot into some of the nation’s most in-demand jobs in technology.

Each year, VetsinTech trains approximately 1,000 veterans in technical skills pertaining to cybersecurity, web development, and cloud computing, and their support extends to include mentorships, workshops, boot camps, hackathons, and startup pitch competitions.

Earlier this year, Ikram Mansori stepped into the role of COO to facilitate the organization’s vision of helping put more veterans on a path toward entrepreneurship, which has seen a precipitous decline over the last 50 years primarily due to a lack of access to capital.

At present, only 10% of U.S. businesses are veteran-owned, but VetsinTech plans to lower the barrier to entry by introducing a range of key initiatives, including the Startup Network, Venture Equity Project, and Veteran Venture Capital.

Mansori will oversee these entrepreneurship programs, as well as work to expand and enhance the reintegration services available to both veterans and military spouses.

Life of a Veteran is our signature digital series that shines the spotlight on the most innovative initiatives helping to train and re-skill Americans for the most in-demand jobs now and in the future.

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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.