Myles Wallace on people with disabilities as an untapped talent pool

Industry leaders discuss business disability inclusion at the 2022 Disability:IN Conference
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“We get a mixture of different people that come to Peak Performers [a staffing agency] for various reasons. Some of them will be seeking their very first job. Some of them might be reentering the workforce, say for example, after they’ve sustained an injury,” says Myles Wallace, strategic partnership specialist, Peak Performers.

WorkingNation sat down with Wallace at 2022 Disability:IN Conference in Dallas.

Wallace – who has a hearing impairment – notes that over the last year, the agency has place 1,400 people. Peak Performers and services job seekers nationwide.

He says employers are looking to hire people with disabilities. “A lot of companies have embraced this with open arms for a number of reasons. First, they themselves might have a disability or they may know somebody that has a disability – and they’ve known how much that can impact the work environment.”

Wallace continues, “A lot of people approach it from a good business sense. As we all know, we are in a hiring crisis where we just cannot find enough talent. And the reality of it is that people with disabilities experience an unemployment rate that is double that of the national average.”

“What we do is help companies tap into this hidden talent pool and really expand it. What you’ll find is not only are they capable of doing the job, but they oftentimes stick around much longer because they are that much more loyal a company.”

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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.