WorkingNation Founder and CEO Art Bilger hosted a panel at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania’s Nation Brand Conference on Oct. 28 to discuss what he considers is the most significant issue facing our nation: a potential massive structural unemployment where we could face rates of up to 25-40%. Bilger founded WorkingNation to help shed light on this issue and how the four key variables—globalization, technology, longevity (people living longer and working longer), and broken education—are coming together to create the Slope of the Curve that has changed dramatically in terms of jobs and skills measured against time. But his mission for WorkingNation is not just to identify the problems, but the solutions as well. Experts who joined Bilger on the panel included: Crystal Bridgeman—Senior Director of Workforce Development Programs, Siemens Foundation Chauncy Lennon—Managing Director and Head of Workforce Initiatives, Global Philanthropy, JPMorgan Chase Phillip Carlsson-Szlezak—Chief Economist, Boston Consulting Group; Leader of firm’s Center for Macroeconomics Martin Scaglione—President and CEO of Hope Street Group TV journalist David Shuster served as the moderator for the panel. Some of the topics/questions discussed during the panel included:
  1. With 47% of all jobs over the next 20 years expected to disappear, according to Oxford, what does the macroeconomic picture look like?
  2. How is the process going getting access to STEM education across demographics and what kind of support is it getting?
  3. The theory that the solution to this issue will come at the state, regional, local levels
  4. The feeling that our institutions are not doing the job to relieve our economic anxieties in a climate that is transforming quickly.
  5. If the U.S. is not able to come up with a competitive solution, what does that do overall to the U.S. brand as it relates to jobs (American ingenuity, the Land of Opportunity) and relatedly to the U.S. economy?
  6. Where is the U.S. positioned in solving this problem in relation to other countries?
  7. Perceptions of a four-year college vs. an apprenticeship
  8. Importance of reinvention of new skills for staying relevant in the future workforce

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.