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Even in the middle of the COVID-19 unemployment crisis, several industries are hiring. Employers are advertising jobs in health care, IT, and cybersecurity, to name a few of the still-in-demand sectors. Meantime, millions of Americans are looking for work.

RetrainAmerica is trying to connect the two.

The new exchange–launched by talent services company Catalyte—is working with businesses, training program providers, and government agencies to aggregate the latest information on what kind of training programs are available.

In this episode of Work in Progress, Jacob Hsu, the CEO of Catalyte says we are at a turning point in American history and the unemployed need a guide to a good job and career. “Unless we provide workers whose jobs won’t exist at the end of this crisis direct opportunities for new career paths, we risk abandoning the most economically vulnerable Americans. RetrainAmerica is here to provide those opportunities for the jobs of the future and help businesses find the talent they desperately need.”

Hsu says the company believes that aptitude is equally distributed, but opportunity is not, and it is dedicated to finding diverse tech talent for its clients. That same ethos is found in the formation of RetrainAmerica.

“The goal really is to bring employers onboard who are gonna essentially sponsor and help people get into those (in0demand) careers. Ultimately, any employer can join. All we’re really asking is make a public pledge that they are going to essentially give people an opportunity, regardless of their backgrounds, because they don’t have certain types of experience, or because they lack a traditional pedigree or credentials.”

Hsu says the exchange is available for anybody who is looking to go through a retraining program. RetrainAmerica started out locally this summer in Baltimore and is expanding nationally with the addition of new partners.

Listen to the podcast here to find out more about the program, or find us wherever you get your podcasts.

Episode 142: Jacob Hsu, CEO, Catalyte
Host: Ramona Schindelheim, Editor-in-Chief, WorkingNation
Producer: Larry Buhl
Executive Producers: Joan Lynch, Melissa Panzer, and Ramona Schindelheim
Music: Composed by Lee Rosevere and licensed under CC by 4.0.

You can check out all the other podcasts at this link: Work in Progress podcasts

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.