9_11

WorkingNation honors and remembers the lives lost and those changed forever on 9/11

Our founder and CEO Art Bilger remembers a friend and colleague who died in the terrorist attacks
-

This article was first published on September 11, 2021.

Today, WorkingNation joins the rest of the country in remembering the 2,977 lives lost on September 11, 2001, and honoring the thousands of first responders who became chronically ill as a result of the terrorist attacks.

Among those who died on that day 20 years ago was Akamai Technologies co-founder Danny Lewin, a friend and colleague to WorkingNation founder and CEO Art Bilger who describes Lewin as “the most remarkable” person he has ever met.

Lewin died at age 31 aboard American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston to Los Angeles, the first plane to be intentionally-crashed into the World Trade Center by terrorists. The 9/11 Commission confirmed Lewin was stabbed to death as he confronted the terrorists in an attempt to thwart the hijacking, becoming the first victim of the attackers that day.

Lewin was a visionary computer scientist who changed the course of the internet during his brief lifetime. Without his pioneering work in the late 1990s, and the company he created with Akamai CEO Tom Leighton, the internet as we know it today may have evolved along a different course. Akamai since then has grown into a multibillion-dollar company dedicated to making the internet “fast, reliable and secure” and is responsible for handling almost one-third of global internet traffic.

“He was the rare person of incredible intellect and action. A truly one-of-a-kind person. It is safe to say that meeting Danny completely altered the trajectory of my life,” Bilger recalls. “Without him, I don’t think WorkingNation would exist.”

This video remembering and honoring Danny Lewin was first released at WorkingNation’s “Cracking the Code: A Town Hall Event on Bridging the Cybersecurity Skills Gap” in June of 2018.

WorkingNation Remembers Danny Lewin

Akamai Technologies’ Co-Founder Danny Lewin is honored by WorkingNation Founder and CEO Art Bilger. Lewin’s life was tragically cut short during the 9/11 attacks when he was murdered by terrorists prior to the crash of American Airlines Flight 11 into the World Trade Center.

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.