“It’s very important to point out that in the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s, the disability community was primarily led by white middle class folks who brought white middle class values to the fore about how things got done,” says Kathy Martinez, president and CEO, Disability Rights Advocates (DRA).
“The good thing is that more people of color are starting to be leaders. I was one of the few non-white leaders in the 80’s and 90’s. And now I think things are changing,” says Martinez who is blind.
WorkingNation sat down with Martinez at 2022 Disability:IN Conferencein Dallas.
When speaking about the work of DRA, Martinez says, “Like any other civil rights issue, disability rights is an evolving movement. Sometimes in order to make physical changes, or changes in how we do business, or changes in how we access the internet we have to use the law as a tool. The law can be a very important tool to make change.”
Martinez cites recent case that DRA won against the MTA of New York. She explains, “What we said is even though you’ve retrofitted the Metro in certain situations, they didn’t really increase accessibility for people who can’t climb stairs. We finally came to an agreement where I think 85% of the Metro will be accessible in 30 years. I know that that doesn’t sound perfect, but right now it’s a very small percentage of the Metro stations that are actually accessible.”
“This is a precedent setting case,” says Martinez. “People definitely pay attention to these kinds of big cases. I think as we win and people see the value of accessible transportation, accessible education, accessible employment, they see that it doesn’t just benefit people with disabilities, but it benefits everybody.”
Learn more about Disability Rights Advocates.
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.