“Having a good job is one of the most important things that this country can provide for people who are looking for the American Dream, because it provides financial security,” says Kerry Healey, president of the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream, created to advance ideas, share experiences, and offer tools to help everyone prosper.
WorkingNation sat down with Healey at the Milken Institute Global Conference 2021 in Beverly Hills as part of our #WorkingNationOverheard interview series. With Charting a New Course as the guiding theme, thought leaders and innovators shared ideas about the changing economy, worker development, education, tech, philanthropy, and more.
“A lot of times people think about the American Dream as something that entails great wealth. But what we find when we talk to people is that all they’re really looking for is the financial security to be able to overcome a hurdle,” says Healey referring to an unexpected expense such as a car accident or the loss of a job.
Healey says purpose in work is also part of that dream. “I had the experience of going into the workforce when I was 15 for minimum wage, which was not quite $2 an hour, because my father had had a heart attack and he could no longer work.” She says, “I felt, as a young girl, that I needed to help my mom. I knew that I needed to save for college. I didn’t want to ask for anything. So I wanted to provide for myself. And I saw very quickly that actually any job can give you dignity if you’re doing it for the right purposes.”
Healey says that experience at a very young age has stayed with her throughout her life. “I’ve been able to have jobs that were better paid, thank goodness, due to educational opportunities. But I never lost that sense that whatever you’re doing can give you dignity if you put respect toward it.”
Click here to learn more about the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream.
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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.