Matt Ater on ensuring accessibility at work for people with disabilities

Industry leaders discuss business disability inclusion at the 2023 Disability:IN Conference
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“As we think about the hiring of people with disabilities, it’s so much connected to ensuring that all of their digital content is fully accessible so that they can do their job,” says Matt Ater, vice president, Vispero

WorkingNation sat down with Ater at the 2023 Disability:IN Conference in Orlando.

He says stereotypes contribute to underemployment among the community. “One is that we face every day in terms of people with disabilities – can we do the job? We live in a world of stereotypes. That’s really hard to get away from that.”

Ater continues, “Part of it is the fact that the employer or the people that are doing the hiring don’t understand what the capabilities of that person are. We make automatic assumptions. I’m never going to be someone who drives a car, so they’re probably not going to hire me to drive a bus, fly an airplane, things of that nature. But if I was hired by an airline company, does it mean I can’t be a call center agent? Does it mean I can’t be a manager?”

He explains the work of Vispero. “We make technology so blind people can work. That includes things like screen reading technology, low vision devices, braille devices that allow someone like myself to make print big enough or be able to feel the print that’s on the computer screen with digital braille, talking computers, things of that nature.”

He says, “Then the other side of the business is an accessibility firm who helps companies solve accessibility issues for both employees of their company or for customers of their companies. That includes their websites, their mobile apps, the applications the employees use all day, the self-service kiosks, whatever it may be.”

Learn more about Vispero.

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Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

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.