Stakeholders have responsibility to support Black learners and workers build professional social capital

Analysis: A framework from Jobs for the Future – in partnership with University of Phoenix – offers actions that can be taken by postsecondary institutions and employers

By Laura Aka

March 3, 2023

Higher ed institutions and employers can boost their efforts to support career advancement for Black learners and workers. A framework from Jobs for the Future (JFF) – in partnership with University of Phoenix – offers suggestions including peer mentoring, paid work-based learning, and building partnerships for intentional and inclusive hiring.

The framework – Professional Social Capital: A Key to Black Economic Advancement – notes, “Professional social capital – the crucial connections, networks, and resources that help people understand, access, and navigate educational systems and the labor market—is a proven accelerant to learner and worker success in today’s society.”

Michael Collins, vice president, JFF and leader of the Center for Racial Economic Equity at JFF

Upon release of the framework, Michael Collins, vice president at JFF and leader of the organization’s Center for Racial Economic Equity, stated, “Many education and workplace strategies for Black learners and workers only focus on credential attainment, but this is not enough to solve education and economic disparities, as Black Americans continue to have less systemic access to build and maintain professional social capital.”

The framework offers calls to action to support Black learners and workers gain professional social capital. These include making leadership- and resource-backed commitments to equity and creating safe, inclusive environments that are co-designed by Black learners and workers.

“This framework offers tangible recommendations to postsecondary institutions and employers to ensure Black Americans have the necessary tools and resources to thrive in higher education and throughout their career,” said Collins.

Read Professional Social Capital: A Key to Black Economic Advancement here.

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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.