Opportunity to a good job has multi-generational impact, says Plinio Ayala, president and CEO of Per Scholas, which advocates for “equitable access to education.”
Ayala joined WorkingNation’s editor-in-chief Ramona Schindelheim for an interview for WorkingNation Overheard at JFF Horizons in Washington, D.C.
He says there are many good programs and proven models that are positively affecting communities. “As a nation, we need to embrace those proven evidence-based models and divert funding so that they can scale and be very intentional about doing that and promoting, as a nation, that there are alternatives to building careers outside of postsecondary education.
“I’m a product of postsecondary education, so I value it. But not everyone can go to college, and they should still have an opportunity to participate in the middle class, in the American Dream.”
Ayala recounts a recent encounter with someone who had gone through the Per Scholas tech program, “An alum came up to me and started thanking me for the opportunity to go through the training program. Then she proceeded to start crying. She said to me, ‘I had lost hope months before entering this program. I did not know how I was going to sustain myself and my daughter, and now I have a job earning more money than I could ever have imagined, and now I have hope again.’”
“For me, it was clear that she got that job because she had the skills that that employer was looking for. And therein lies, I think part of the success of this organization.”
Learn more about Per Scholas.
WorkingNation Overheard at JFF Horizons 2024 was made possible through funding from EnGen.
© Copyright 2024 by Structural Unemployment, LLC dba WorkingNation
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.
