United Way of Greater Nashville’s president and CEO Brian Hassett was selected by Global Action Platform for a Harvard Business School leadership program that focuses on helping communities prosper.
The program begins in June and will convene representatives from 14 U.S. cities. Hassett is among 10 government, business, academic, clergy and nonprofit leaders from Middle Tennessee, including:
- Andrea Blackman, Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer, Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County
- Ashlee Davis, Senior Manager—Diversity and Inclusion, AllianceBernstein
- Bonnie Dow, Dean of Academic Initiatives, College of Arts and Sciences, Vanderbilt University
- Mike Molinar, General Manager, Big Machine Music
- Joanne Pulles, President, HCA Healthcare Foundation
- Tara Scarlett, President, The Scarlett Family Foundation
- Lissa Smith, Associate for Pastoral Care and Cathedral Life, Christ Church Cathedral
- Michael P. Thompson, Executive Director, JP Morgan
- Marcie Allen Van Mol, President and Founder, MAC Presents
“I’m honored and humbled to be considered among such innovative leaders in our community,” Hassett said. “I’m looking forward to working alongside these individuals to better understand and facilitate how we can work together for the shared growth and prosperity of our region in today’s global economy.”
Global Action Platform is the regional affiliate of the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness, Harvard Business School and the local partner and coordinator of the Young American Leaders program for Nashville, which grows out of a deep concern and a great hope shared by Global Action Platform and the Harvard Business School’s ongoing project on U.S. competitiveness. The concern is that the local, shared resources which drive American prosperity are not keeping pace with global standards. U.S. workforce skills, schools and infrastructure are not improving fast enough or are deteriorating. As a result, an unsustainable divergence has gripped the U.S. economy: Working- and middle-class Americans are struggling, even as firms and individuals who can tap global opportunities are thriving. Prosperity is being generated but not shared as broadly as desired. Policymakers, businesspeople, nonprofit leaders, educators, clergy and others are coming together to build skills, improve schools and restore infrastructure to build a foundation for economic growth and shared prosperity.
Participants are selected by senior community leaders to participate each June in an intensive case study workshop on urban and rural regional collaborations and strategies for economic resilience. Participating cities include Boston, Columbus, Detroit, Miami, Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Salt Lake City and Seattle, among others. The program was launched to develop leaders who understand cross-sector collaborations for shared prosperity and can implement them more effectively and spread them more rapidly than in the past.