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Advocating for the Civil Rights of People With Disabilities

The Kennedys and the Shrivers: Generations of commitment to disability inclusion

For six decades, the Kennedy and Shriver families have been instrumental in advocating for and advancing the rights of Americans with disabilities
For six decades, the Kennedy and Shriver families have been instrumental in advocating for and advancing the rights of Americans with disabilities

Ever since a childhood diagnosis that resulted in the amputation of a limb, Ted Kennedy, Jr., has been an advocate for the civil rights of people with disabilities.

Kennedy’s involvement in the disability rights movement began when he was appointed to the President’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities under President Ronald Reagan, and he has spent his career fighting to expand job opportunities for people with disabilities both as a lawyer and a state senator.

However, Kennedy’s story is just one branch of a family tree that has supported many arms of the disability community over the years. The Kennedy family’s connection to the cause traces back to Rosemary Kennedy, who was born with an intellectual disability.

Since then, the Kennedy Foundation was established to improve the means by which society deals with disabilities, and Eunice Kennedy Shriver founded the world-renowned organization known as Special Olympics.

To this day, Anthony and Timothy Shriver uphold the legacy of both the Special Olympics and Best Buddies, and Kennedy’s role as the co-chair of the Disability:IN‘s Disability Equality Index is allowing him to address the systemic issues that are impeding the economic independence of disabled persons, particularly income inequality.

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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.