“At TD Bank, we’re really focused on building partnerships. Partnerships within the bank. Partnerships in the communities where we live and work. And partnerships throughout the disability community to really drive awareness about our passion for hiring individuals with disabilities,” says John Pluhowski, SVP and chief communications officer, TD Bank.
He continues, “Why is that so important to us? Because we want to break down the barriers that really prevent people from gaining access to jobs, careers, and organizations that really care to advance inclusion and equality across their company and around the globe.”
WorkingNation sat down with Pluhowski at 2022 Disability:IN Conference in Dallas.
“There is that misperception that there’s a cost associated with hiring anyone who has a disability because they may require more services,” says Pluhowski. “We take a totally different point of view on that. We encourage people to tell us what their disability is even when they go through the recruiting process. So, we know exactly what we need to do to tailor solutions that meet their needs to ensure they are set up for success, not just in the role they take, but actually how we think about their career long term.”
Pluhowski’s place in the disability space is personal. “Our son, who’s 34 years old, has autism and he is nonverbal. He is my hero. He is why I am here today because I have seen through his life where he’s not been given the same opportunities with those who don’t have a disability. So early on, I decided to be an advocate – his advocate – to make sure he was never treated any differently.”
Says Pluhowski, “Being his advocate led me to really be an advocate for anyone with a disability. In my professional career, I’ve never worked for an organization where I felt so comfortable talking about it. In fact, through my whole career, until I came to TD Bank, I never talked about disability. I never talked about my son. But the culture is so trusting, it just made it made it feel natural to go ahead and do so.”
Learn more about TD Bank.
Watch more interviews from the Disability:IN conference.
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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.
