WIP at CES 2023

What we learned at CES about how tech is changing the way we work

A conversation with Laura Demarse, Ford Motor Company; Barbara Humpton, Siemens; and Felecia Pryor, John Deere at CES
-

For this episode of Work in Progress, I headed to Las Vegas for CES 2023, the huge Consumer Electronics Show.

As usual, there were thousands of cool new consumer products on display, including a wireless OLED TV at the LG booth, all kinds of at-home health care products, and a robot that was roaming the showroom floor apparently on its own.

That was all very interesting, of course, but I was mostly there to talk to business and workforce development leaders about how all this tech innovation is playing out in the workforce. In other words, someone has to make these new products, so what kind of skills do you need to have to be a part of this dominating tech industry.

A lot of leaders wanted to talk about this and I’ve a lot of great interviews in the coming weeks.

I’m kicking it off with some of my conversations at leaders from some well-known brands: Ford Motor Company, John Deere, and Siemens. The first two sell direct-to-consumer and the latter is B2B but has a role in so much of what we, as consumers, use in our everyday life.

I spoke with Laura Demarse, workforce development leader at Ford; Barbara Humpton, CEO of Siemens; and Felecia Pryor, chief people officer for Deere.

Our conversations centered around how each of those companies is really a tech company requiring tech workers. In each discussion, we talked about the type of skills they are hiring for and how they are working to upskill or reskill current employees.

Listen here, or download the podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

Oh, and here is that cool robot we spotted on the CES floor.

We spotted this cool robot on the CES 2023 floor

We spotted this on the CES 2023 floor. The robot was seemingly self-guided. When someone, or something, got in its way it stopped. Not sure who made it, but it was a lot of fun! Now that we have your attention, check out the Work in Progress podcast on how tech is changing the way we work.

Episode 257: Barbara Humpton, Siemens; Laura Demarse, Ford Motor Company; Felecia Pryor, John Deere Company
Host & Executive Producer: Ramona Schindelheim, Editor-in-Chief, WorkingNation
Producer: Larry Buhl
Executive Producers: Joan Lynch and Melissa Panzer
Theme Music: Composed by Lee Rosevere and licensed under CC by 4.0
Download the transcript for this podcast here.
You can check out all the other podcasts at this link: Work in Progress podcasts

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.