“When I think about education today, one of the things that I’m struck by is the fact that our current design and our systems are actually outdated. They were designed centuries ago based on a factory model,” says Tequilla Brownie, Ed.D., CEO, TNTP (formerly The New Teacher Project).
She continues, “They don’t serve us well in today’s context in ensuring that kids are accessing the skills, the talent, the tools, and resources that they need to have multiple options to ensure that they are able to obtain a career that helps them obtain a thriving life as an adult.”
WorkingNation sat down with Brownie at JFF Horizons in New Orleans.
Brownie says access to high quality teaching and learning is important, but it’s not enough. “We know that kids need access to things like social capital. You get social capital by way of those experiential learning opportunities like internships, career-connected learning conversations with adults in various capacities.”
“But the key is that those things right now are happenstance. We don’t guarantee that every child leaves high school with the right set of skills, social capital, career-connected learning, and frankly advising that’s going to help them connect their passions with the all the many different options of careers that are out there.”
Brownie says student introductions to careers must come at an early age. “Imagine how detrimental it is for students from poverty, students from marginalized communities being only exposed to a very limited number of career options or waiting until they’re in high school to even begin those conversations. Frankly, that’s too late.”
Learn more about TNTP.
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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.
