Chike Aguh, senior advisor, Harvard's Project of Workforce and WorkingNation Advisory Board member
Chike Aguh, senior advisor, Harvard's Project of Workforce and WorkingNation Advisory Board member

Strategies to lessen the further marginalization of midcareer and older workers

A conversation with Chike Aguh, Senior Advisor, The Project on Workforce at Harvard University, and Member, WorkingNation Advisory Board
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In this episode of Work in Progress, I am joined by Chike Aguh, senior advisor to The Project on Workforce at Harvard University and the former Chief Innovation Officer for the Biden Administration. He’s also a member of the WorkingNation Advisory Board. We sat down to discuss the impact of AI and tech innovation on the workforce, particularly midcareer and older workers, at the Equity Summit 2024 in Washington, a collaboration between CWI Labs, Center for Workforce Inclusion, and WorkingNation.

Sometimes it feels like technology is moving so fast that many of us are at risk of being left behind.

The U.S. economy is in need of workers right now, with 10 job openings for every eight people looking for work. Some employers say they are struggling to find workers with the right tech skills and timeless interpersonal skills.

At the Equity Summit, Aguh and I discussed ways to ensure that midcareer and older worker have access to opportunities in today’s labor market, in hiring, job retention, and reskilling. Aguh talked about how technology can’t replace everyone but tech innovations such as AI could exacerbate existing inequities for marginalized older workers, including older workers of color.

He offered up ideas on how employers can utilize the talents of older workers, rather than buying into biases and outdated assumptions about their abilities. Aguh offered specific strategies employers could use to help upskilled and integrate their workers into the workforce to help solve their labor shortage.

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

Episode 336: Chike Aguh, Senior Advisor, The Project on Workforce at Harvard University
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.