The Talent of Tomorrow–Shaping the Workforce of the Future

Key takeaways

If you decide to redesign your talent or hiring systems to center single moms, you’re going to hire differently. If you start redesigning your promotion system to include people who don’t have a business degree, you’re going to promote differently. Once you start to redefine the systems that you were taught, you can think differently, hire differently, develop differently.

—— Channing Martin, IPG Global Chief Diversity & Social Impact Officer

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At the end of the day, our old assumptions don't yield the talent businesses really need. If you actually want to have the best talent and stay competitive, then you have to begin to question your assumptions.

— Shavar Jeffries, KIPP Foundation CEO

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What you hired for in the past is not what you need to hire for in the future. We're seeing rapid evolution in what great talent looks like and how you find it. It’s not just about credentials, but about the person and their skills.

— Matt Hoffman, M13 Partner & Head of Talent

The talent of tomorrow

Future Perfect is M13’s thought leadership series, where we convene investors and founders to reflect on the lessons and innovations that inform how we will build the future. In May, we gathered in New York City to hear from the vanguards of technology, innovation, and investing.

“The way things have always been” isn’t the way they’ll be tomorrow. The economy of the future will require a workforce of the future, and we have the opportunity and responsibility to shape that today.

Shavar Jeffries (KIPP Foundation CEO) and Channing Martin (IPG Global Chief Diversity & Social Impact Officer) sat down with M13 Partner Matt Hoffman to discuss how we can move away from outdated talent practices and make the workforce of tomorrow better reflect the consumers of tomorrow.

Developing talent starts with K-12 education

“When we think about the workforce of the future, we have to make sure that every American child has access to it,” says Shavar Jeffries, head of the KIPP, America's largest network of charter schools. “We’re leaving too much talent on the margins of our country, because some kids simply don't have the opportunities that others have.”

Rectifying that begins with how we fund public education. Right now, public schools are generally funded by local property taxes—which are affected by inequity, redlining, and other.

“If you fund your public schools accordingly, you’re just going to reproduce the inequity in property valuations in your public education system,” Shavar explains. “This country will not be able to serve the demand of tomorrow’s workforce if we leave literally millions of young people on the backside of opportunity because we're not making the investments in K-12 public education that we ought to.”

In addition to reexamining how we fund opportunities for students, shaping the talent pipeline of tomorrow will require thinking about how we build leaders much earlier on than we do right now. Intentionally focusing on building inclusive leadership early on will pay dividends when students enter the workforce later on.

“We have to think differently about building inclusive leadership really early on. “We often skip that stuff until you show up in the workplace,” says Channing Martin, Global Chief Diversity & Social Impact Officer at IPG. “It’s just not a conversation we're having in primary education right now—but that is the point when you can really affect the future and create a new framework for what effective leadership looks like.”

The way Channing sees it, the first day on the job is also too late to start learning how to interact with people who are different from you. “No matter what industry you’re in, you want to hire folks that can have culturally relevant conversations. And I don't think that those skills should be taught on the job; they really should be taught ahead of time,” beginning with elementary education.

Centering the margins

As Head of Talent at M13, Matt Hofman helps build out not only M13’s talent and culture, but the talent strategies across our portfolio companies. “What you hired for in the past is not what you need to hire for in the future,” he says. “We're seeing rapid evolution in what great talent looks like and how you find it. It’s not just about credentials, but about the person and their skills.”

Shavar agrees: “Oftentimes, our assumptions really aren't interrogated [to hire] in a way that's really connected to the competencies you need for a job.” The desirability of a candidate is based on outdated metrics—did they go to an Ivy league school? Do they know anybody in this industry? Have they demonstrated that they have a handle on the unspoken social rules unrelated to the actual work?

One way to stop punishing employees for not being part of a homogenous culture is to center people at the margins, rather than building people systems that cater to the people who have historically dominated the workforce.

“What does it look like to center people at the margins?” Channing asks. “If you decide to redesign your talent or hiring systems to center single moms, you’re going to hire differently. If you start redesigning your promotion system to include people who don’t have a business degree, you’re going to promote differently. Once you start to redefine the systems that you were taught, you can think differently, hire differently, develop differently.”

Building systems that work for people at the margins—rather than those who have historically been at the center—benefits the entire organization. Employee benefits policies that cater to single parents will also be more beneficial for partnered parents. Development systems that aren’t built to promote executives’ personal favorites will allow talent to show through more effectively across the company. Hiring systems that aren’t artificially pegged to educational pedigree will allow teams to hire for what actually matters.

“I bust the myth all the time that diverse talent doesn’t exist,” says Channing. “That’s just not true. And we have the skills, the tools, the resources, and the access to meet people where they are and find talent that doesn't necessarily look the way that we're used to.”

Inclusive practices have also been shown time and time again to boost bottom lines. “To me, it’s not just a moral conversation,” Shavar adds. “At the end of the day, our old assumptions don't yield the talent these businesses really need. If you actually want to have the best talent and stay competitive, then you have to begin to question your assumptions.”

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Thank you to our speakers

Shavar Jeffries has been an advocate for social justice and educational equity for more than two decades. He joined the KIPP Foundation as CEO in January 2023, a culmination of his many years as a champion for KIPP schools. Shavar was founding board chair of KIPP Newark in 2001; joined the KIPP Foundation Board in 2019; and is a proud KIPP parent, as his two children graduated from KIPP Spark Academy and KIPP Team Academy in Newark. As a first-generation college graduate, he understands implicitly the life-changing power of a high-quality education.

Prior to joining the Foundation, Shavar was President of Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) and its affiliate organization, Education Reform Now, where he led the organization in passing over 100 policies at the federal and state level that expanded educational opportunities for low-income students of color. Throughout his career, Shavar has practiced law, worked as an assistant attorney general in New Jersey, and served as the elected president of the Newark school board.

Shavar graduated from Duke University and Columbia Law School, where he concentrated on civil rights law and policy. He has been recognized broadly for his work—by the NAACP, the National Bar Association, and the Congressional Black Caucus, among others.

Channing Martin is IPG’s Global Chief Diversity and Social Impact Officer. In this role, she is responsible for advancing IPG’s diversity, equity, and inclusion objectives and continuing to strengthen IPG’s progress toward being one of the world’s most diverse and inclusive companies.

Reporting to the CEO, Martin leads IPG’s strategy on all diversity-related matters, including the continued diversification of IPG’s senior ranks and talent pipeline and partnerships with IPG’s full network of agency brands, CEOs, and DE&I leadership community. Martin supports the advancement of social impact strategies and practices alongside the leadership of IPG’s integrated ESG team.

Prior to joining IPG, Martin was Chief Diversity and Social Responsibility Officer of CSG, working across the company to promote and build effective strategies for DE&I. She was also responsible for ESG initiatives. Martin previously held the positions of Diversity and Inclusion Manager at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Diversity Lead and Strategic Planner for the US Department of State, and the Diversity Recruitment and Assessment Manager for the US Office of Personnel Management.

Martin holds a BA in economics from the University of Pittsburgh and an MS in Public Policy and management from Heinz College at Carnegie-Mellon University.

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