“How can college prepare people not just to be successful as individual contributors, but to be successful 5, 10, 15 years past graduation?” asks Joy Chen, CEO, Multicultural Leadership Institute.
WorkingNation sat down with Chen at SXSW EDU 2023 in Austin.
“The role of an individual contributor is actually quite similar to the role of a student. Your boss gives you assignments and you work hard and you have to make one person happy, your boss,” says Chen.
“If that person is happy, you are good. Whether it’s a teacher or your boss, those skills are quite transferrable from college these days to individual contributors. The problem is what happens when you want to move up?”
Chen explains, “When they start to want to move up, they crash into the glass ceiling because nobody ever gave them the skills that they need or even told them there are other skills that you need in order to move up after age 30.”
Among those skills – cultural fluency. Chen says stakeholders have to develop the ability to work with people from different backgrounds.
With her past experience as a CEO headhunter and deputy mayor of Los Angeles, Chen says, “When I went around and interviewed CEOs and said, ‘Hey, what are the biggest issues facing you guys?’ The number one issue that I heard was,’ I cannot find the skilled workforce that I need.’ That was really surprising to me.”
She continues, “One of the things that I’ve observed is the way that these individuals are measured to be successful in their careers is not aligned with the overall goal of preparing students to be successful and fulfill their potential in our economy.”
Learn more about the Multicultural Leadership Institute.
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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.
