SXSW EDU 2024: Role of the school principal

Aaron Huff, Ed.D., president of NASSP and practicing principal at Benjamin Bosse High School, joined WorkingNation to share his thoughts on the principal’s community impact
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Principals can be crucial drivers of their communities, says Aaron Huff, Ed.D., president of the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) and practicing principal at Benjamin Bosse High School in Evansville, Indiana.

Huff joined WorkingNation’s editor-in-chief Ramona Schindelheim for WorkingNation Overheard at SXSW EDU 2024 in Austin.

Regarding workforce development, Huff says he’s developed relationships with area employers including Toyota Motor Manufacturing and SABIC. “I’ve been fortunate enough to build some collaborative partnerships in my school, and those children have been able to access those organizations at an early age, been able to work for them, get paid by them. So, they know their culture, their community. They know the expectations.”

About his own history, Huff says he, initially, had no interest in education. “I had a mother who was in education for 47 years, and so I was the kid that was running away from education.

“But ultimately what happened is I started working in some afterschool programming with the YMCA and it pricked my heart. Next thing you know, I knew I didn’t want to teach. I wanted to impact a larger audience.”

Huff adds, “Kids can’t be what they can’t see. My responsibility is to break down barriers, open up doors, and give kids access that they would not have. My kids barely get out of a 14-block radius. And so, my responsibility is to extend that as far as I can and give them learning opportunities, give them experience.”

Learn more about the National Association of Secondary School Principals.
Learn more about Benjamin Bosse High School.

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.