27 Jan January 27, 2022 – Happy Leader Tia Graham, Intelligent Automation from Accenture and the Southern Education Foundation
Tia Graham – Founder of Arrive At Happy and Author of Be a Happy Leader: Stop Feeling Overwhelmed, Thrive Personally, and Achieve Killer Business Results
Tia Graham is the Founder of Arrive At Happy (aah!), a Certified Chief Happiness Officer, and has worked with dozens of global companies such as Goldman Sachs, Four Seasons, and Kashi to elevate engagement, sales, and drive bottom line results. With multiple certifications in neuroscience, positive psychology, leadership coaching, and employee morale she supports executives and teams through advising and experiential events. Be a Happy Leader teaches leaders to lead positively, put their people first, and create engaged teams which lead to higher productivity and profit. It shows the reader how to be the type of boss that people want to work for―forever. Prior to running aah!, Tia led sales and marketing teams at luxury hotels in the United States and Turkey for brands such as W Hotels, Westin, and The London. She is widely regarded by the corporate happiness community and is a speaker at the annual World Happiness Summit. Her insights have been featured in national publications like Forbes, MindBodyGreen, The Los Angeles Times, Well + Good, and Yoga Journal.
Rajendra Prasad – Senior Managing Director and Global Lead for Automation at Accenture
Automation technology has become a powerful tool to help businesses in any industry run more efficiently and find new opportunities for value. In fact, IDC Research estimates that spending on automation software will reach $42.6B by 2025. Intelligent automation goes one step further, bringing in artificial intelligence and machine learning to reinvent business processes, guide better decisions and free up employees to take on more challenging and creative work. Yet many companies struggle with where to start and how to scale. To address this growing interest, technology experts at Accenture, a leader in digital transformation technologies, have written a how-to guide for implementing and maintaining a successful intelligent automation strategy. The Automation Advantage, available now, will serve as a strategic and practical guide for technology and business leaders, explaining how companies can drive intelligent automation at scale while weaving AI into the fabric of the organization. They cut through myths and misunderstandings to blaze a clear trail for any business leader looking to develop an intelligent automation strategy, create new value and realize growth—all with a human-centric approach.
Raymond Pierce – President & CEO, Southern Education Foundation and
Meagan Crowe – Senior Research & Policy Analyst, Southern Education Foundation
The Southern Education Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit committed to advancing equitable education policies and practices that elevate learning for Black students, other students of color, and students from low-income families in the southern states. They just released a report entitled EVES. The report highlights the persistent historic racial and economic inequities that create barriers to high-quality education. Southern states consistently rank among the lowest for educational attainment, income, employment and health. Consider the following:
- Fourteen percent of people living in the South live in poverty.
- Nearly one in five children (19 percent) under 18 in the South are living in poverty.
- Thirteen percent of households in the South face low food security.
- A median of 48 percent of families in southern states live in areas where childcare is sparse.
As President and CEO of the Southern Education Foundation, Raymond C. Pierce leads the organization’s historic mission of advancing educational opportunities for African American students, other students of color, and students and students from low-income families in the southern states. Since joining SEF in January 2018, Pierce has focused the organization on policy research, education legislation and leadership development. Meagan Crowe is Senior Research and Policy Analyst for the Southern Education Foundation where she plays a lead role in using research and data to highlight trends and current inequities in education, elevate promising solutions, and create compelling narratives to advise policymakers, practitioners, and stakeholders.