The 9/11 Memorial in New York

Honoring the lives lost and changed by the 9/11 terrorist attack

Our founder and CEO Art Bilger remembers a friend and colleague who died in the 2001 terrorist attacks
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Today, WorkingNation joins the rest of the nation in remembering the 2,977 lives lost on September 11, 2001, and honoring the thousands of first responders who became chronically ill when terrorists intentionally crashed planes into the World Trade Centers in New York, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and in rural Pennsylvania.

Akamai Technologies co-founder Danny Lewin died at age 31 aboard American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston to Los Angeles, the first plane to be intentionally-crashed into the World Trade Centers by terrorists. The 9/11 Commission confirmed Lewin was stabbed to death as he confronted the terrorists in an attempt to thwart the hijacking, becoming the first victim of the attackers that day.

Lewin was a friend and colleague to WorkingNation founder and CEO Art Bilger who remembers Lewin as a visionary computer scientist who changed the course of the internet during his brief career and as “the most remarkable” person he has ever met.

Without Lewin’s pioneering work in the late 1990s, and the company he created with Akamai CEO Tom Leighton, the internet as we know it today may have evolved along a different course. Since its founding, Akamai has grown into a multibillion-dollar company dedicated to making the internet “fast, reliable and secure” and is responsible for handling internet traffic and security for billions of people globally.

“He was the rare person of incredible intellect and action. A truly one-of-a-kind person. It is safe to say that meeting Danny completely altered the trajectory of my life,” Bilger recalls. “Without him, I don’t think WorkingNation would exist.”

This video remembering and honoring Danny Lewin was first released at WorkingNation’s “Cracking the Code: A Town Hall Event on Bridging the Cybersecurity Skills Gap” in June of 2018.

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Akamai Technologies’ Co-Founder Danny Lewin is honored by WorkingNation Founder and CEO Art Bilger. Lewin’s life was tragically cut short during the 9/11 attacks when he was murdered by terrorists prior to the crash of American Airlines Flight 11 into the World Trade Center.

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.