Director of Community Relations Joyce Searcy and Belmont Trustee and Studio Bank Chief Relationship Officer Harry Allen are among 10 government, business and nonprofit leaders from Middle Tennessee chosen by Global Action Platform to attend a Harvard Business School leadership program June 24-28.
Ten leaders from 14 cities across the U.S. are selected by senior community leaders in those cities to go to Harvard each June for an intensive case study workshop on urban and rural regional collaborations and strategies for economic resilience. 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.
Global Action Platform is the local partner and coordinator of the Young American Leaders Program for Nashville and the regional affiliate of the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness at Harvard Business School.
The Young American Leaders Program 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, for instance, are not improving fast enough or, in too many cases, 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.
Along with Searcy and Allen, other Nashville leaders selected to participate in the leadership program at Harvard are:
Nathan Green, Vice Chancellor for Government and Community Relations, Vanderbilt University
Beth Seigenthaler Courtney, Managing Partner, Southeast, Finn Partners
Malika Anderson, Chief of Organizational Development, Instruction Partners
Joe Flynn, AVP, Community Engagement, HCA; President, HCA Hope Foundation
Andrew Goldner, Founding Partner, GrowthX
Tony Niknejad, Policy Director, Office of the Governor, State of Tennessee
Lisa Purcell, Vice President of Development, Education, and Community Outreach, Country Music Hall of Fame ®and Museum
Martha Silva, Senior Director of Economic Integration, Conexion Americas
Other participating cities include Boston, Columbus, Detroit, Miami, Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Salt Lake City and Seattle, among others.
