Bridging The Labor Gap: How Upwardly Global Is Transforming the Economy

0:00Right now in the United States, there are more than 2 million highly skilled immigrants who could be adding more than$40 billion a year to the economy if it weren't for red tape, cultural differences, and opaque hiring processes. Our next guest is trying to close that gap. Welcome to C-Suite Unscripted. I'm Maggie McGrath, your host. And for today's episode, I sat down with Gregory Haile. Greg is the CEO of Upwardly Global, a nonprofit that works with companies like Pfizer, Wells Fargo, and Accenture to place highly credentialed immigrants who are already legally in the U.S. to higher paying jobs than the ones they're currently in.

0:41Greg became this organization's CEO in January after a career spanning everything from litigation to higher education, and he and I talked about why that experience was essential for getting him to where he is today. We also talked about what he learned about being a dolphin among sharks in class action law and how his upbringing in Jamaica, Queens shaped both his perspective and professional mission. Let's dive in.

1:15Greg, thank you so much for sitting down with Forbes. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. You have three different titles that bring you to this table. You are the CEO of Upwardly Global. You are the chair of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. You are also a senior advisor to the Harvard Project on Workforce. But just for our viewers and listeners, I'll note that you are here in your capacity as CEO of Upwardly Global. But I would say, as I look at those three titles, I would call you a workplace expert. Is that fair? I'm someone who pays close attention to what's happening in the workforce.

1:48I think it's critical for our economy to understand that. And a lot of my experiences have leaned into that work. And it's been something I recognize is critically important for our country. So maybe that's one way to coin it. But I think about it as something that I love doing. And it happens to be really important for our country as well. So let's talk about Upwardly Global. When I was digging into research, I saw a quote from Accenture CEO Julie Sweet that said, we are a better, more innovative company because of our partnership with Upwardly Global. And in that moment, I felt embarrassed that I didn't know exactly what you do.

2:20So can you give our audience a 60-second elevator pitch for what Upwardly Global is and does? Absolutely. Thank you very much for that opportunity. It was great to reinvigorate Julie's comment as well. So Upwardly Global is an organization that's been around for about 25 years. And we actually do something very simple. Think about high-skilled talent that's here from all over the world. They're technologists, they're engineers, they're in the medical profession. But they're here, they're work authorized in the United States, but they're underemployed or sometimes unemployed. There's about 2.8 million people in this category in the United States.

2:53And we help move those highly skilled, underemployed, work authorized immigrants into labor force gaps, like with companies such as Accenture and other companies throughout the United States as well that have challenges finding talent. But this is talent that's already here. It's ready. It's skilled. It's already educated. It's experienced. But sometimes they're on the sidelines and they might be in survival jobs. They might be working at grocery stores. They might be driving your local rideshare, but they can't figure out how to necessarily navigate the workforce system as well. So we've been that bridge between these incredibly talented work authorized immigrants and businesses that need that talent.

3:26You recently had a post on Match Day, so folks in the medical community will understand the importance of Match Day. I have doctors in my family, so this is the example that I think I gravitated to when trying to understand what you do. But there are folks who train in residencies abroad and come here and are not authorized to work as doctors here, yet have the medical skills. Can you talk about specifically what Upwardly Global does to help that constituent population? Yeah. So you could hardly find a state in the United States that doesn't have some need when it comes to the medical profession and certainly doctors as well.

4:02And so you have doctors here in the United States who are, like you said, already been trained, already skilled, and have done essentially everything as well as have experience. So they're here in the United States, but sometimes the credentialing is different. So a lot of hospitals and states don't have the same credential recognition as you would for someone who's been skilled in another country. So we help bridge that gap. And just as much, the person who's here, they don't necessarily know how to get recredentialed. So we bridge that gap for recredentialing. Sometimes it's a matter of new testing.

4:32Sometimes it's about scholarship provision for new testing. Sometimes it's about having a network to make sure, which hospitals do I go to? What process do I leverage? How do I do those things? So that's where we come in. And so I thank you for elevating that. We actually placed 20 doctors during match day. And these are doctors who, again, highly skilled, but just couldn't match. And we even had one scenario where one person that we matched lived about 20 minutes from the hospital that they ended up working at getting a residency for. So you have these scenarios where you can even be that close and you have a hospital that's looking for talent.

5:03You have a patient that needs care and you have these people who are incredibly skilled who are looking for that opportunity. So it's an honor to be in a situation with an organization where we get to bridge that gap and make a difference in that way. So do you see your job as cutting down the red tape and cutting down the time it takes to place in someone's job? Or is it going to take the same amount of time to get into the job, but you provide the resources and the knowledge so that folks actually get there? Yeah, I think it's a little bit of both, actually. So when you look at the data, I've seen data that says it can take as much as eight years for those who, for example, don't pass through an organization like Upwardly Global.

5:36When we actually identify talent, we typically place them within 12 to 18 months, which is a significant cut of red tape and time. So you think about this from two perspectives, at least. You have the individual, if you've ever been without a job, high skilled, you come to the United States with ambitions, you're here legally, you're doing everything right, but you can't find the job. You may have a family. So we cut the time to do that, which has a significant impact on them, their communities, and of course, their economic circumstances. Then you have a hospital, for example, or maybe other businesses who are looking for talent, and they truly are having a difficult times struggling.

6:08That's been the case for quite some time. And so we end up shrinking the time for that as well. And some of it on the red tape side is simply navigation. How do you do this? Let me coach you through it. You have people who have applied, as you know, for jobs over and over and over again, sometimes being rejected hundreds of times. So a lot of times it's just coaching in the sense of how do we make sure we keep individuals motivated to let them know that the opportunity is there? They're highly skilled. And that's especially the case, again, someone's been highly skilled. They've been a great professional for a long time and they come here and they thought it was going to be easier maybe, or maybe they would be able to navigate it easier.

6:40And it's not as easy as they thought, but we're helping with that. So making sure that we're providing that inspiration to keep them going and inevitably get them the job in a place that needs them. Obviously, there are health care worker shortages across the country, but as you look at the types of folks that you're helping, what are the sectors that have the greatest need? Is it engineering? Is it technology? What else are you seeing? Yeah, we focus on a few areas. So health care is a very big one. It actually comes number two. Number one is actually technology. But we also see finance and accounting is significant.

7:08Engineering is significant. Business and logistics are significant. Those are the areas that we focus on, and it's high-needed in all of those areas in the workplace. And you've placed 35 ,000 job seekers over the lifetime of the organization and estimate that these job seekers have added$1.9 billion to the economy. So with the you said there are two million highly skilled workers who are here and are under or unemployed. How much could they add to the economy if they were to get employed tomorrow? So let me talk you through that a little bit. So we have placed about 35 ,000 job seekers, professionals who are, again, highly needed by employers.

7:48And when we identify them and they come to us, their average salary is about$9 ,000 a year. Some of them are unemployed, but on average it's$9 ,000. When we place them about 12 to 18 months later, their salary starting is on average$67 ,000 a year. Now, I've been in workforce for a very long time. I have not seen gaps like that being filled in a 12 to 18 month period. It is quite remarkable. And so when you extrapolate that, you start to think about the numbers and scale. The last actual official data that we've seen around this is about$40 billion a year in annual lost wages. Now, I will tell you, even I challenge that data a little bit only because it's so old.

8:25It's from 2013. And we know that high-skilled immigration has grown since then significantly. So we've actually started to develop our own data. And we're starting to look at it on a state-by-state basis. And our population typically are those who have been here for the last 10 years. So if we were to categorize it as high-skilled immigrants who have been here in the last 10 years, I can tell you that the losses in Florida, for example, there are about 188 ,000 people who are on the sidelines high-skilled. That's about$11.1 billion in annual wage loss and capital. If you were to look at it from, again, billions in loss in California, it's about$9 billion.

9:00And you can start to look at it by state and ask ourselves, what would it look like if we had that capital working in a way, in a more efficient way, so that we could increase GDP by state, inevitably by the nation? As you talk about highly skilled workers, you mentioned that these are folks who are already here. So as we look at some of the political news about H-1B visas and the fees that may or may not exist, I know a Massachusetts judge earlier this month called the$100 ,000 fee on H-1B visas unlawful. But does that affect your population at all? Or are they, because they're already here, some of the month by month, week by week swings in immigration policy don't quite affect them?

9:40So it is quite distinct from that because they're already here. They're already work authorized. So those H-1Bs are obviously individuals who are not quite here yet, and they're trying to come. So it is distinct. And this is why we think it's so easy, frankly, when we think about the work that our partners, our business leaders in the community should be thinking about, right? This is not necessarily about, although there are occasions where you should, think about looking abroad. What about the talent that is here, again, already trained, already educated, already skilled, and has the capacity to move on day one into the fields of choice?

10:10Now, as you look at some of the jobs data, the most recent jobs report showed, if the analysis that I read was correct, about 7.6 million open positions. But there's hiring at 5.1 million, so a gap of 2.5. I'm not naive enough to think that those 2.5 million job openings map exactly to the 2 million highly skilled workers. But as you look at the data that comes out month by month from the BLS, what does that tell you about the opportunities that exist? Yeah, it's significant. So the areas that I described to you, those are actually all high need areas, which is something that we think about at Upwardly Global.

10:44How do we make sure that the talent that we're working with and supporting, there's a scaling component of what we do to make sure that there's an adjustment as needed for the talent that we're seeing coming through our doors and making sure that they align with the workforce need. But what we're doing is making sure that the pockets of need that we're working with are those that align with the workforce needs globally. And that's been a key part of our work and a key part of our success. You know, there's a lot of question about in the job market when you think about, you know, I have a background in higher education.

11:09And one of the things that you might see are a lot of questions around, are we moving individuals into the right jobs, right, i.e. high paying jobs? Are we seeing the right kind of return? In this particular scenario, it cost us about$12 ,000 to place someone in a$68 ,000 job. Again, exceptional returns to move someone from$9 ,000 to$68 ,000 for that low cost. Why is that? because they are already trained in these very high-skilled areas, because we know that there's gaps in the labor market in these high-skilled areas. And so that magic works very well for us. I've heard you say in another interview that by 2030, there will be more people retiring than entering the workforce.

11:47Is that accurate? Just a little bit. I'll curate it just a little bit, if you will. It's quite dire when I think about it. So the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, released data early this year indicating that by 2030 in the United States, deaths will outpace births in this country, which is a very significant issue that, frankly, I don't think it's talked about nearly enough. So if you just think about that for a moment, you start to look at other data and compound it with by 2035, all workforce growth will come from immigration. And so either way you look at it from a growth perspective, we're getting very close to all growth coming from immigrant populations.

12:25And And that's something we should be very thoughtful about. And frankly, that's the kind of issue that's happening around the world. Depopulation is something that a lot of significant countries around the world are concerned about. And you could see that concern manifested in some of the behaviors that they're taking in order to address it. You see a lot of economic interest in trying to improve birth rates. That's one way to do it. The United States has something better than that. The United States has the capacity to say, look at all the talent that we have here. how do we make sure that we move the 2.8 million people off the sidelines and integrate them into the workforce in a way that continues to nurture our growth, in a way that moves people off of the sidelines, in a way that doesn't require a massive investment of new capital to re-educate or retool, but simply creating the connectivity that we need from the talent that's already here and already engaged.

13:13So you became CEO of Upwardly Global in January of this year. As you look at the task that lies in front of you in terms of getting these skilled workers jobs and also growing your organization. What's your number one imperative? Is it getting the word out to more employers? Do you need more corporations on board? I mean, you already work with Wells Fargo and Pfizer, so you have plenty of workforce partners, but is the impediment to upwardly global growth, the number of employers, or is it the donors, or is it just job seekers knowing about you? When I took this role, one of the things that there are two pieces to this answer.

13:51It was the recognition that there are incredible people who have remarkable skills and are of remarkable character. And they are trying to figure their way into the roles that can be of impact for them, their families, and their communities. And then you just happen to have this alignment with what they're trying to do in a way that aligns very much with what has been the mission of this country, right? It is the idea that regardless of where you come from, if you have that character, if you have that ambition and you are looking for a place to thrive, that this would be a place for you, regardless of your lineage and regardless of your background.

14:28And so there's this alignment between the work of Upper League Global and the mission of this country. And right in between that is the how, right? And the how is, what does it look like to partner with businesses and industry to make sure that the gifts and character and talents of these individuals can be manifested to the greatest extent possible? And in doing so, making sure that those talents are leveraged to help those businesses thrive. And when we do that, we see our country thrive. An appropriate statement as we approach the 250th anniversary of the creation of America. But I also look at some of the pessimism that exists in the job market.

15:04And this probably extends well beyond just the 2 million highly skilled immigrants who are in this country. I look at data around Gen Z job seekers, recent grads. And I know that's not the population that Upwardly Global serves, but I know you've also been asked about this. As you look at the threat of AI that workers are feeling, what's your response to the overall opportunity in the job market right now for job seekers of all ages? Yeah, I would say there is overall opportunity. One, to anyone who is thinking about their own place in the job market, just like any other time in history, we need to be thinking about what are the tools that we have that we can bring to bear.

15:44Now, are the changes happening in a way that is quicker than they ever have? Absolutely. And that means that we have to have the discipline and objective of continuing to get retooled repeatedly. And colleges and traditional post-secondary institutions and training grounds have to be prepared for that. We're prepared for that, making sure that those skills, as they atrophy, perhaps quicker than they have in the past, continue to get renegotiated and grow. The other part that we have to be very considerate about, and that's foundational, but part two of that is the recognition of part of what I just told you.

16:16We actually are in a time where human capital we will start to run short on in a very near period of time. And so as we think about the adjacency between human capital and AI and the growth and need of that, you know, you are hearing, thank goodness, I think more and more leaders speak to the fact that it's not about replacing jobs, but what's it look like to make sure that as jobs are augmented, we have the human capital that can work in alliance with AI to make sure we meet the needs of the workforce. The data is bearing that out. We see a lot of headlines, and I know the headlines can be very scary about many people losing their jobs to AI.

16:51But when you actually look at the underlying data, the underlying data does not quite say that. There are some challenges that we're seeing, but we're not seeing the terminations at a rate that you might expect if you're picking up the paper every other day and seeing some of these. So I would say if you can focus on the data and the realities and try not to get too caught up in the headlines, but what you can take control of is making sure that the individual that you have the skills and continue to think about what it looks like to grow your own skills along the way. The dichotomy between headlines and data versus personal feeling can be a strong one, especially for early job seekers.

17:27And this, I think, might be more anecdotal than borne out in data, but you know a lot of data, so perhaps you can fact check me. We've run some stories and I've seen some headlines across the Internet about folks staying in jobs longer into their careers and not retiring at quite as early an age as they may have in the past and how younger job seekers perhaps feel threatened by that. And I say this as the editor of a list called the 50 over 50 that recognizes the power of experience. So I don't want it to sound like I am criticizing folks for staying in jobs. But as you look at some of the dynamics around that, people living longer, staying in jobs longer, what does that do to the other side of the job market?

18:06And is it a potential threat for Gen Z, Gen Alpha? I don't think it is. And the reason why is because when we think about, again, the data and through history, when we've seen people go into the job market, we've actually seen opportunities grow. You know, there's oftentimes positioning, if you will, that if one person or one group is in the job market, then they're somehow keeping another person or group out of the job market. And again, the data historically, that has never borne out to be true. As we've continued to think about, as the rules have changed and laws have changed, frankly, there was a time when women weren't in the job market.

18:38And the question was, well, if women enter the job market, will they take all the jobs of men? Well, we know that proved not to be true. In fact, it was quite the opposite. We've seen the job market continue to grow. We've seen GDP grow. We've seen companies grow as a result of more people being moved into the market. So I wouldn't use that as a highlight. What I would say is what is the opportunity, frankly, and this is harder and harder, I think, today, for younger people to learn from more seasoned veterans who are in the workplace. That is what I would consider a more significant challenge that we should be thoughtful about.

19:07There's a lot of concern about whether you're in a remote environment or you're someone who's younger. How do you get the mentoring? One of the greatest benefits that I ever had as a young person, as a young attorney when I started my career, was having the opportunity to meet with seasoned lawyers who were 30 and 40 years my senior who took the time for me. I could walk down the hall and do that. Maybe that's not as easy today, but that is something that young talent should be looking for. We've talked a little bit about the difference between data and anecdotes and feelings. And something else that we've been seeing in some of the interviews we do across Forbes and in some of our coverage is a bit of an anti-higher ed sentiment, if you will.

19:45Obviously, there's a place for advanced degrees, for undergraduate degrees, but there's also a place for community colleges, trade schools. And I think in some parts of the Internet, there is some dialogue about don't go to college. You don't need to. You've worn many hats in your career, so you can choose which one you put on as you answer this. But what's your response to the anti-higher education sentiment we might be seeing right now? I'll give you two responses. One, there's a piece of data that people don't talk about very often. And that is typically if you ask generally, does everyone need to go to college?

20:22You might get an answer to the effect of no, everyone doesn't need to go. And we can parse that out. Then if you ask people, do you think your children should go to college? Most people will say, yes, I think my children should go to college. And so we have to be very careful about how we talk about this. And I think one really critical element is really around exposure. What I have often pushed back against is not the idea of going to college or not going to college and trying to break that into pieces, but there are many people who don't know about the opportunity, and they are very capable.

20:58and so we have to be very careful about telling people who are very capable have all the capacity to do the things that college can bring them and yet and still we are telling them that this is not for you. I have seen it firsthand what it is to be told it is not for you. When I was in high school I remember a teacher of mine told me I was sitting in the back of the class and a teacher of mine from the front of the class said, if you ever go to college, you will never survive. Now, I'm not sure if I was the first or the last person that she ever told that to, but she was wrong. And so the question that we have to ask ourselves is before we start blankedly saying it is not for everyone or not everyone needs to go, we have to ask ourselves, how do we make sure that we align the right opportunities with the talent that is aligned for those opportunities, as opposed to simply saying to swaths of people that this is not for you.

21:56Have you gotten a chance to tell her that she was wrong? Maybe she'll hear this. I don't know. I hope so. I very much hope so. As we talk about opportunities in the workforce, opportunities in higher education, I think one of the first big stories I wrote when I came to Forbes, this was 2013. There had been an op-ed in the Duke student newspaper from someone who was a first-generation college student, and her point was, I'm on a tuition scholarship. My tuition is covered, but room, board, activities, that all costs money that I do not have. And I am being locked out of some of these opportunities.

22:29So I wrote a companion piece to a story that we did on the Jack Kent Cook Foundation, looking at the challenges of the headline was the challenge of being poor at rich universities. And this was 2013. So a lot has happened since. And I'm wondering, as you look at higher education and students who are in the same position that you were in as a student, what are the biggest challenges facing these first-generation college students in 2026? Yeah, I would say, so change continues to happen very quickly. And you have to position yourself in that of a first-generation college student. So think about the student who is truly relying on the campus environment to help them navigate.

23:09Oftentimes, there are folks who are relying on their parents or their second generation at a given school, let alone second-generation college students, and they know how to navigate the institution well. First-generation students simply don't know how to navigate it, and it doesn't mean they don't have the capacity to. It just means they might need a little bit of guidance. Just like someone who is a second or third generation, they've gotten their guidance in a very different way. Their guidance was at the dinner table. Their guidance was at tours. Their guidance came in a variety of ways, and now we're talking about someone who have all the same capacities but simply hasn't had that guidance.

23:42So I ask institutions to think about what it looks like to provide that guidance to help navigate. And it's just as much obvious as it is not. Sometimes that leads to insecurity. When you go to a top-notch institution, oftentimes you come from a more challenged background. And even your stories are different about what you did with your summers or your plans for the future. Again, no capacity difference, but just differences that to relate to things that have nothing to do with that. I'll never forget one of the students that I spoke with talked about going to the laundry room and washing his clothes and finding piles of wet clothing on top of the washer because someone had washed their clothes and forgotten to put them in the dryer.

24:24And his comment to me was, I cannot imagine ever taking your clothes for granted like that. And it's interesting as you talk about the awareness, the capacity is there, but the awareness and kind of the inside language that you need to navigate these institutions, it's very similar to what you're doing at Upwardly Global. Two million highly skilled immigrants just need a little help navigating a system that can be incredibly opaque. That's exactly right. And again, you could get as simple as the interview, right? What does the interview look like? What does my resume look like in a new country?

24:56How assertive should I be when I may come from a country where that assertiveness is not exactly well received? And so it's that type of cultural adjustment and understanding that just needs to be had. And again, if you're a doctor, the body's still the same, right? But the process of getting there might be a little different. Speaking of your early days, you just gave me a brilliant transition into talking about your journey to the C-suite. You have a very impressive resume. And I will note for our viewers that there are a number of board seats that we, just because we're focused on the C-suite here, I will probably bypass.

25:32but you are trained as a lawyer and you started your career as a lawyer. Was your first job a litigation associate? That's exactly right. I started my career as a class action securities litigator in 2002. Class action securities litigator. So I often like to ask executives, what's one hard skill and what's one soft skill you learned in that role? I can imagine what the hard skill is, but as you look back to that early, those early jobs and that one in particular, What was the biggest learning? So part of the learning for me was I was a first generation college graduate. And I actually, you know, I grew up actually not too far from here in Queens, New York, in a quite challenging neighborhood.

26:10And I didn't know a lot of corporate professionals. In fact, I didn't know any. And so I was the first person in my family to go to college and first to graduate and first to go into law school. And so the truth is, part of my reality was just adjusting to the culture of being in a truly corporate environment that I had never been exposed to before. I remember, you know, I was very optimistic about the kinds of changes and impact that I could have as a lawyer. I'll never forget a friend told me, who's a very dear friend even today, said, Greg, I think you are a dolphin among sharks. And I actually took that as a compliment.

26:46And I did because I recognized that. And that was a very caring comment that came from her. And I recognized that I felt like there were ways you could navigate even what perceived to be an environment of sharks, if you will. What's it look like to do some good in this space? And one of the reasons why I went to the field when I was in law school, I did a lot of pro bono work and got a lot of recognition for that. And Holland, the firm I started out with, was very well known for that. So I learned quite a bit about adjusting to the corporate environment in general. And from Holland, you went to Weiss Sirota et al.

27:20And it looked like your focus changed a little bit. You were no longer in SEC class action lawsuits. What part of the legal industry did you move to next? Yeah, so let me kind of tell you a little bit about the legal part of my journey anyway. So I started my career as class action securities litigator. So that was, if you remember, 2002, Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, just an amazing time. Amazing time for lawyers. Amazing time for lawyers, right. Amazing time for lawyers, that's for sure. And so when I was in that first couple of years, I did that work and just learned a tremendous amount in that space, much of which I think provided seeding for the work I do a lot today, even in the workforce and thinking about the economy.

27:58Also, I had a chance to work with some very, like I mentioned, very senior folks who taught me. Make sure you get to know everyone, right? One of the things about us in our fields, especially lawyers, is that we spend a lot of time with lawyers and that can be okay. But a mentor said to me, get to know people in policy and politics and business and just make sure you make yourself well-rounded as a professional. And that helped. And another part was, how could I grow? oftentimes you're working in very large matters at a very large firm, which is where I was at a time where the cases are significant and you don't get to lead early.

28:31And that was something I had a hunger for. So then I went to my next firm and I had a chance to lead very, very early. I remember when I was thinking about where I wanted to go and they said, what do you have to do? What do we have to do to get you here? And I said, I want to go to trial. I want to lead cases. And they said, we will have you in trial in a week. And they did. I said, yes. And they absolutely did. And it was incredible. So that was a remarkable experience. And then I went to one other firm, and in which case, they actually gave me the opportunity to lead on very big cases. But then it was also a matter of supporting getting very involved in the community at the same time.

29:07Now, I will tell you, I don't use this as a positive trait today, but I slept very little back then. And it was the kind of thing where I felt like I was growing in my career. And I had a very strong interest in being a great lawyer and being a great service to the community. And not everyone welcomes that combination of the two. And this was an opportunity to do all those things. And it just, I enjoyed it a great deal. Continuing to be a dolphin among sharks. I sure I did the best I could. I want to be in a trial moment. Yeah. That was really asking for what you wanted and not being afraid. What did that moment teach you?

29:43And also the speed at which that opportunity was presented to you. What does that tell you about opportunity in the workplace? Or is there a lesson from that? Oh, my goodness, there's such a great lesson from it. I think, you know, it's not something that I really was very conscious of growing up, or even as a young professional, the need, the importance of asking, right, of asking for what you want. And that was one of the first times I think as a professional that I really took hold of saying, what do I want to do with my career? And how do I control my own growth. And making that ask and seeing it was received so well, and then inevitably seeing the growth from it, it was because of that ask that after a few years with that firm, I honestly felt like professionally, I could do anything.

30:26I could learn, even if I didn't know how to do it, I could learn with the right opportunities and the right diligence. And I could do anything. And it was the first time in my professional life when I realized, so I have choices and I can think about this. And so as I moved into the next role, it allowed me to have a lot of courage, a lot of confidence in leading things that were bigger than I had in the past. And that's frankly continued to be a trend throughout my career. So along the way, you were a teaching assistant at Columbia University School of Law, adjunct professor at Miami Dade College.

30:59Eventually, did you merge the two? Am I skipping over too much? Because I do know you ended up in education, but I'm seeing a general counsel for public policy and government affairs. I'm happy to jump in. Yes, I'm connecting the dots. I'm trying to make sure we don't spend too much time in your adjunct roles and going. Yeah, go ahead. Sure. So I ended up after seven and a half years of practice in law, corporate law, asking myself, what did I want to do that I felt like I could dedicate my life to that would be a significant impact. And that would be close to my own heart as well. And so I mentioned to you that I was a first generation college graduate and had a lot of, frankly, challenges growing up as a kid.

31:45I graduated from high school with a 2.7 GPA and I was in the top 15 % of my class. And that's because I went to one of the most challenging schools in the United States. It was in the first cohort of high schools that required metal detectors. And my neighborhood was a reflection of the school that I grew up in. And I say that because when I started to transition from the law into what was next, I'd asked myself, how can I position myself to help others who have perhaps been in similar circumstances that I have been in? And so I was asked to apply for a role at Broward College, which is one of the largest colleges in the United States.

32:19It's essentially a community college in the sense that it's an open access institution. And many of the students there were just like me, first-generation college students. They were low-income, so they required Pell Grants, and they had challenges that in many ways were beyond their control that they were trying to overcome and sometimes escape. So I took that role, and I was probably about 30 days into that role when I realized that I would spend my career removing barriers for those who had high character, high capacity, but simply didn't necessarily know the way. And I ended up transitioning from the general counsel of that institution to the president of that institution and had just what I would say was a camelot run for as the president of that institution and had an incredible job.

33:07This episode is brought to you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed sponsored jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed Sponsored Jobs. Get a$75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. Camelot run, Indeed. I'm just going to read some of this so our audience understands the context. You were the college's seventh president, the first African-American president in the college's history and as one of the most diverse colleges in America, 30 % Black or African American, 39 % Hispanic, Latino.

33:53It was recognized as one of the top five community colleges. You were recognized rather as one of the top five community college CEOs in the nation at the time. You held that job for a good six years. What was the biggest soft skill you learned as leading an academic institution? I talked to a lot of corporate CEOs who have boards and investors, And academia is not too far different with all the many constituents that demand your attention. But as you look at that leadership role, what was the biggest learning? Yeah, there was so much to learn. I think that being my first CEO position, part of the value was understanding what does it mean to have people in your care?

34:37You know, I think I'd always felt and recognized that as you climb through an organization or you climb in your career, you start to recognize that more people are leaning on you, not just for the practical day-to-day, but sometimes it's for guidance that is inside the organization or outside of the organization. It might be about their personal lives or other ways that they're seeking you because they trust you. And when you are in a leadership position, the CEO or the president of the organization, you are in a position of the highest level of trust within that organization. And in many ways, that trust translates to care.

35:12And one of the more remarkable, there's so many remarkable times, but remarkably challenging that maybe others have talked to you about was leading during the COVID pandemic and recognizing I have 5 ,000 people that I need to care for and that I have 50 plus thousand students that I need to not only care for, but help continue to ensure their capacity to grow, notwithstanding this new challenge that they have to face. That kind of experience, especially upon reflection, you start to realize that if you can lead and navigate through that in a successful way, you recognize the need to be prepared for anything, and you embrace your own capacity to be prepared for anything.

35:54As the president of a diverse and top community college, you had the ability to create a lot of change among a large population. What made you leave that job? I think one of the hardest things, if notwithstanding, when you have a great deal of success to recognize, is there another opportunity or is there another direction that you might want to take, especially if you start thinking about your own future and long term. So I'd been at the institution for 13 years and had a great run and started to ask myself, what could be next? And then I end up in this role. I did, as you mentioned, wear a few hats along the way.

36:27And I will tell you, being in this role with Upper League Global, I'd never, if you would have asked me a year or so, So to be honest with you about it, I would have never necessarily thought about the good fortune of being aligned with an organization that can actually have a national impact in a way that is so aligned with the history and ambitions of this country. And so sometimes you take a chance on yourself and give yourself the opportunity to do something else that might be special. And I feel like I'm giving myself that opportunity today. So you're six months into the CEO role. I know you have a bit of a publicity tour within your own organization coming up.

37:01Can you talk about this tour and how you're thinking about engaging with Upwardly Global's employees and donors and partner organizations? Yeah, we're going to hit a few cities this year, and I'm really excited about it. So part of the opportunity here is how do we make sure that people know some of what I've shared with you today, to know about the history of the organization, the importance of the organization, but also the need that we're seeing in our country for the organization's mission in the alignment to be shared, in the alignment with our country's needs, to be shared at a broad level.

37:28So we're looking for businesses to come and join us. We're looking for philanthropists to come and join us. We're looking for potential partners to come and join us, because I don't believe that the kind of things that we're trying to achieve, we cannot do it alone. We have to have the humility to understand that we need as many people engaged as possible. This is an issue that no matter who I talk to, they get it, they understand it, from a business perspective, from an economic perspective, and from a personal perspective. You have great people, great lives, and great opportunity that's being lost.

37:56We want to make sure that we change that. As you look at the steps that you have taken in your career, from litigation to leading a college to now leading this organization, how do you see it all coalescing? What are the skills that you're using today that you learned in that very first litigation office when you were a dolphin among sharks? As I mentioned a little bit earlier, I grew up in Queens, New York, in a very challenging neighborhood. And my mother did something that proved to be incredibly valuable. When I was in third grade, she actually lied about my address so I could go to school in a different neighborhood.

38:29And so I would get on, I would walk for a few minutes through the projects, get on the bus for 45 minutes, and then get off and walk for another 10 minutes. And so every single day, I was in the neighborhood that I lived in, which had many good people, my family, my neighbors. but it had many challenges that were very clear and barriers that were in many ways beyond the control of so many great character people who lived there. And then I would also, in that same day, go to another neighborhood, same great character, wonderful individuals, wonderful families. And those barriers did not exist. And so I got to see what it looked like for good people to have a very different set of barriers to have to navigate.

39:13And I saw that every day of the youth. My mother did not plan for that part of it, but that is certainly something that I understood. That is a very important element of what I think has led me to today. When I think about my professional side of that work, starting my career as a corporate litigator, understanding how to think about evidence and how to make persuasive arguments critical as I think about the story that I hope to be able to tell. as I moved into higher education, giving me an incredible understanding of not just diverse populations from around the world, but the barriers that they face and what it means to have the technical understanding of moving someone into the workforce.

39:54Now, this was a regional college that served essentially the South Florida area, but giving me a great glimpse about how people from all over the world could still move into the workforce in a local community. And now to be in a scenario where, again, people from all over the world have the opportunity to be placed throughout the United States, where need is great throughout the United States. And there's this really critical element that I didn't expect and we didn't touch upon. And again, I don't speak on the behalf, but my role at the Federal Reserve, giving me opportunity to see the economy from a labor perspective in ways that I could have never imagined for the last five and a half years has been incredible.

40:31And so to understand the relationship between all of those things from my childhood through the Fed into today, being able to understand a need that is so great for this country is something that would have never happened but for all of those engagements. It's a lovely way to put it. It all coalesced and led to where you are. And if not for everything that you've talked about, you might not be where you are today. I would say there's no question about it. So if we sit down one year from now, what would you hope to report to Forbes that you and upwardly global have accomplished in 365 days? Yeah, more people are aware of the challenge.

41:07And just maybe we get to a place where, as a nation, we understand it in a broader way and even find ways to hold ourselves accountable. So one proof point, and this is something you should hold me accountable for, is what does it look like to just understand the data and make sure we have an accountability metric for how we move as a country when it comes to taking 2.8 million plus, highly skilled, ready to work, and moving them into the workplace in a way that fills gaps and in some ways in a medical profession even saves lives. Well, Greg, we'll have to have you back to give us that progress report.

41:39But in the meantime, thank you so much for sitting down with us. It's been my pleasure. Thank you for having me.