Economic transitions can be met with fear, but that’s normal, says Rachel Korberg, executive director and co-founder of The Families and Workers Fund, a coalition of philanthropic groups that collaborates to enable economic mobility in the workforce.
Korberg joined WorkingNation’s editor-in-chief Ramona Schindelheim for an interview at WorkingNation Overheard at JFF Horizons in Washington, D.C.
She says transitions are exciting for the country – and references clean energy. “We can allocate the money, we can move forward the tax credits, we can do trillions of dollars in private investment. But ultimately this all comes down to people – people who are actually doing things on the ground. So, I am excited that a lot of our big, most ambitious goals as a country now require us to provide good quality training to ensure that a more diverse group of workers has access to these jobs than ever have before.”
Korberg says, “For a long time, the country hasn’t had a really clear definition of what makes a job good, what makes a quality job.
“We set out to try to help shift that a couple of years ago. We brought together this group of business leaders, labor leaders, educators, training providers. We talked to workers. We talked to chief human resource officers. We looked at the research and where we came out was actually a very simple three-part definition. A good job should help you get by, get ahead and have a say. To put it in slightly more fancy terms, it should provide you with economic stability, economic mobility, and respect in voice.”
Learn more about The Family and Workers Fund.
WorkingNation Overheard at JFF Horizons 2024 was made possible through funding from EnGen.
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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.
