SXSW EDU Panel on making the economic case for immigrants
SXSW EDU Panel on making the economic case for immigrants

Creating better pathways to economic mobility for immigrants

A SXSW EDU 2025 panel discussion with Arturo Cázares, LBAN; Jina Krause-Vilmar, Upwardly Global; and Katie Brown, EnGen
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In this episode of Work in Progress, we dive into the significant contribution that immigrants and foreign-born workers already make to our economy and explore ways to create better pathways to economic mobility through education and training.

In March, at SXSW EDU in Austin, WorkingNation brought together business, education, and nonprofit leaders for a discussion on the subject. Joining me on stage at the conference were Katie Brown, founder and chief education officer for EnGen; Jina Krause-Vilmar, CEO of Upwardly Global; and Arturo Cázares, CEO of Latino Business Action Network.

There are 47.8 million immigrants in our country. That’s about 14% of the population. One in five workers in our country is an immigrant. Immigrants and foreign-born workers generate trillions in economic activity and tax revenue. Economists argue that reducing immigration could have a major negative impact on GDP growth.

The immigrant workforce is diverse, touching every industry and community. Immigrants have a range of educational and skill levels, from low-wage workers to entrepreneurs to highly-educated professionals. And there are barriers to economic mobility for all levels of the immigrant population.

These hurdles include lack of English skills, difficulties getting professional credentials and qualifications earned in other countries recognized in the U.S., lack of access to capital, and lack of access to career navigation and support services.

My conversation with Brown, Krause-Vilmar, and Cázares looks at those barriers and what is being done to break them down for the contribution by immigrants to our economic growth can be even greater.

The podcast here also includes the lively discussion with the audience members who joined us in the room. My thanks to the panelists and the audience, and to SXSW EDU for giving us the stage for this important conversation.

I also want to share my gratitude and thanks to my colleague Laura Aka for bringing this panel together and sharing her insights and knowledge with us on the subject.

I encourage everyone to take the time to listen.

You can listen to the full podcast here or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find our podcasts on the Work in Progress YouTube channel.

Episode 359: From SXSW EDU: Katie Brown, Jina Krause-Vilmar, and Arturo Cázares
Host & Executive Producer: Ramona Schindelheim, Editor-in-Chief, WorkingNation
Producer: Larry Buhl
Theme Music: Composed by Lee Rosevere and licensed under CC by 4
Transcript: Download the transcript for this episode here
Work in Progress Podcast: Catch up on previous episodes here

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.