4-Quarter Lives

This week’s guest with Avivah Wittenberg-Cox on 4-Quarter Lives is Dr Mona Mourshed, the founder and CEO of Generation, a global non-profit organisation that prepares, places and supports adult learners of all ages into careers that are otherwise inaccessible, delivering sector-leading employment and income results consistently.  Generation has recently worked with the OECD to publish a report on The MidCareer Opportunity. It recognises that the world of work is getting older, with profound implications for the labour market, government finances, healthcare and welfare systems, and millions of midcareer workers. The OECD and Generation teamed up to survey thousands of hiring managers, employed, and unemployed people across Europe, the UK, and the US. The resulting report reveals unfounded but deep-seated ageism, explores barriers and enablers to career success, and lays out the steps that business, policymakers, and midcareer and older workers themselves can take now to navigate our transition to a more digital and sustainable world.  Launched in 2015, Generation comprises a global hub (Generation You Employed, or GYE) and a network of in-country affiliates.  To date, the network has over 100,000 graduates and helped more than 14,000 employers across 40 professions and 18 countries. When learners join Generation, 90% are unemployed, of which nearly half are long-term unemployed.  Three months after completing Generation’s programme, graduates have an 80% job placement rate, rising to 90% within six months. Of their employed graduates, 68% are hired by repeat employer partners, and 88% are in jobs directly related to the profession for which Generation has trained them. Employed graduates immediately earn an average of 3-4 times their previous earnings.  Two to five years after graduation, 70% of alumni continue to meet their daily financial needs and 40% save for the future. To date, Generation’s global graduates have earned some $900 million in wages.Dr Mona Mourshed has decades of experience as a leader in the education and workforce space. She has authored widely cited education reports, including Education to Employment: Getting Europe’s Youth Into Work, Education to Employment: Designing a System That Works, How the World’s Most Improved School Systems Keep Getting Better, and How the World’s Best Performing School Systems Come Out on Top.Previously she founded and led McKinsey & Company’s global education practice, and led McKinsey’s global social responsibility agenda. She was selected as one of Fortune Magazine’s ’40 under 40’, sits on the boards of Last Mile Health, New America and Teach for All, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, is a Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation Entrepreneur, and previously served on the Board of Governors of the International Baccalaureate Organization. Mona has a B.A. from Stanford University and a Ph.D. from MIT. She holds dual Egyptian and American citizenship.Some Useful Links:* Generation website* The MidCareer Opportunity – Report by Generation and the OECD* Forbes Article: ‘Employers May Not Value 25 Years Experience As Much As 5, New Data Shows’, by Avivah Wittenberg-Cox Get full access to Elderberries at elderberries.substack.com/subscribe

In this week’s 4-Quarter Lives, Avivah Wittenberg-Cox talks with Lisa Edgar from Saga, a British company which, since its creation over 70 years ago, has focused on services for the over 50s market.  Its operations range from holidays, cruise ships and tours, to a wide range of insurance products, personal financial services and personal alarms. Its Saga Magazine has a monthly readership of over 1 million. In 2022 there were some 26.1 million people over 50, and this is expected to increase to 28.2 million by 2032. Currently this represents 39% of the UK population, which is estimated to spend some £292 billion on non-household expenditure. Saga is a key player in this marked and a byword for having seen and responded to the interests of the older customer.Lisa is Saga’s Chief Customer Officer and the Chief Executive of its own wholly owned insight agency, the Big Window. She joined the Saga Executive Leadership Team in February 2022 to drive its vision of knowing its customers, and what it means to get older.  Prior to Saga, Lisa owned and led insight agencies for over 20 years and is a multi-award-winning and published speaker on ageing consumers, together with how they behave and respond.  During that time, Lisa worked with leading UK and global players, including Aviva, Zurich, Bupa, Hargreaves Lansdown, BBC and many others, helping them to develop leading-edge insight into their strategies and tactics.  Over the last 10 years, Lisa focused her attention on the ageing population and , in particular, ageing and decision-making for consumers, employees and employers.  She is now regarded as a leader in the field of what it means to age as a consumer and employee, what needs are created by this, and how to best satisfy those needs with products and services.Some Useful Links* Saga’s Customer-facing website* Saga’s Corporate and Investor website* The Big Window website Get full access to Elderberries at elderberries.substack.com/subscribe

In this week’s 4-Quarter Lives Avivah Wittenberg-Cox talks with Dr Emi Kiyota, Founder and director of Ibasho, an organization that facilitates the co-creation with elders of socially integrated, sustainable communities that value their elders. In Japanese, Ibasho means ‘A place where you can feel like yourself’.Emi Kiyota was born and grew up in Japan in a 4-generation household. She thought living with grandparents and great-grandparents was both normal and essential - until she discovered the world thought otherwise. After a doctorate in the US, and living in American nursing homes, she thought there must be a better way to design life for our future selves. She founded the Ibasho concept, which flips the script. Instead of caring for elders, it’s the elders who care for us. With projects already in Japan, she’s now bringing the idea to Singapore.Dr. Kiyota holds a Ph.D. in architecture from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She is an environmental gerontologist and a consultant with over 20 years experience in designing and implementing person-centered care in long-term care facilities and hospitals globally. Her current focus is on creating socially integrated and resilient cities where elders are engaged and able to actively participate in their communities. She has published journal articles and book chapters and serves on the board of directors of the Global Ageing Network. Dr. Kiyota has been awarded fellowships to investigate this topic, including the Loeb Fellowship at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, the Rockefeller Bellagio Residency Fellowship, and the Atlantic Fellowship for Equity in Brain Health at the Global Brain Health Institute at University of California, San Francisco. She is currently Deputy Executive Director, Centre for Population Health, at the National University of Singapore, and Associate Professor, NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine and College of Design and Engineering. Useful Links:* Website of Ibasho* Article: Ibasho House, A Communal Place in an Aging Local Community* World Bank Report: The Ibasho Toolkit* Wiley Online Library: Co-creating Environments: Empowering Elders and Strengthening Communities through Design Get full access to Elderberries at elderberries.substack.com/subscribe

In this week’s 4-Quarter Lives, Avivah Wittenberg-Cox talks with Michael Fossat, head of Schneider Electric’s Future Ready program. With a 180-year history, Schneider is now focused on assisting and driving the energy transition to an electric and digital future. Yet this 150,000 strong company discovered that its 51+ employees (what Avivah calls Q3) weren’t as motivated and engaged as the rest. Schneider determined to fix that, especially given the talent wars they feel pressing on their business needs every day. The Future Ready Program is their response.Michael Fossat has worked at Schneider for much of his professional career. Passionate about sustainable business and people’s central role in achieving it, he joined Schneider Electric in France as an HR apprentice in an industrial department, participated in the creation of HR shared services for the entire group and worked in the R&D division, before moving to Barcelona to create the HR Metrics function globally. Returning to Paris he was successively HR VP for one of the business units, HR head of Central and Eastern Europe and HR leader for European plants and distribution centres. In taking on his current role in 2021 as head of the Future Ready Program he brought a wide knowledge of what motivates people across the group.   Schneider Electric websiteSchneider Electric – Company Purposehttps://www.kornferry.com/content/dam/kornferry/docs/pdfs/KF-Future-of-Work-Talent-Crunch-Report.pdfhttps://www.aarpinternational.org/Articles by Avivah on other Corporate Initiatives: Unilever and Aviva Get full access to Elderberries at elderberries.substack.com/subscribe

In this week’s 4-Quarter Lives, Avivah Wittenberg-Cox talks with Dr Julie Miller, Director of Thought Leadership, Financial Resilience, at the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP).  Dr Miller seeks to propel new conversations and cultivate partnerships that will challenge the status quo of longevity and empower people to have the financial and economic stability to live longer, healthier lives.Prior to joining AARP, Julie Miller spent a decade as a social science researcher at the MIT AgeLab, where she led translational social science research across key topical areas of longevity planning, caregiving and wellbeing, housing and home logistics, and transportation and livable communities. As a Rappaport Public Policy Fellow through Harvard University’s Rappaport Institute, Dr. Miller supported the Massachusetts Executive Office of Elder Affairs in its administration of the nation’s first statewide Governor’s Council to Address Aging. She served as a lecturer and program founder and coordinator at Northeastern University, Boston University, and UC Berkeley and produced two documentary films centering “Vibrant Aging.”Dr. Miller work has appeared in The New York Times, Barron’s, Rethinking65, CNBC, Innovation in Aging, The Journal of Financial Planning, The Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Families in Society, The Journal of Intergenerational Relationships, The Journal of Gerontological Social Work, Gerontology and Geriatrics Education, The Journal of Workplace and Behavioral Health, and numerous edited books.  She received her doctorate of philosophy in social work at Boston College, her masters in social work with a concentration in gerontology from The University of California, Berkeley, and her bachelors of science from Northeastern University, where she studied Human Services and American Sign Language.Some Useful Links:* The reports Julie describes and other resources can be found at aarpinternational.org* Unleashing the Economic Power of Older Women* How Women 50+ Are Driving the Global Economy* An Analysis of Governmental Plans for Healthy Aging from Around the WorldThe Business Case for Healthy Longevity Workbook * o   Longevity Economy Outlook Get full access to Elderberries at elderberries.substack.com/subscribe

On this week’s 4-Quarter Lives Avivah Wittenberg-Cox talks with Haleh Nazeri, Lead, Longevity Economy at the World Economic Forum. Earlier this year Haleh was responsible for the WEF’s report “Living Longer Better - Understanding Longevity Literacy.” Her work convenes senior executives from the financial services industry, key stakeholders from the public sector, and civil society leaders to promote financial innovations for a more resilient and equitable longer life.Before joining the World Economic Forum, Haleh Nazeri worked for a number of years for global insurance group AIG, as well as for the Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation and the Council on Foreign Relations. She has a BA from the University of California Santa Cruz and an MA in Middle Eastern Studies from New York University.Some Useful Links:* WEF Report: Living Longer Better – Understanding Longevity Literacy* WEF link to financial resilience initiatives: Financial resilience for every generation* Article: Why Longevity Literacy is the Secret to a Prosperous Longer Life, by Haleh Nazeri* Article: We desperately need to disrupt our approach to retirement saving, by Haleh Nazeri* Article: How a multi-generational workforce is key to economic growth, by Andre Belelieu and Haleh Nazeri. Get full access to Elderberries at elderberries.substack.com/subscribe

This week on 4 Quarter Lives Avivah Wittenberg-Cox talks with Philip O’Keefe, Director of the Ageing Asia Research Hub at the Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research (CEPAR), based in Sydney Australia.  Asia is on an accelerated journey on so many dimensions. We’ve long watched its extraordinary economic growth. Now, we’re seeing it accelerating in other areas that in the past took far longer in the West: namely demographic transition, ageing populations and plummeting fertility levels. The speed at which the populations of this region are shifting, reshaping and in some cases already shrinking is remarkable. The role of the Ageing Asia Research Hub is to plot and understand these shifts, and to examine their social and economic implications.Philip (Pip) O’Keefe is Professor of Practice, University of New South Wales Business School, Sydney, and Director of the Ageing Asia Research Hub, Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research (CEPAR). Prior to joining CEPAR, between 1993 and 2021, he had a full and varied career at the World Bank, based in Washington D.C., Beijing, New Delhi, Sydney and Budapest. He worked in East Asia and Pacific (EAP), South Asia, and Eastern Europe and Central Asia regions, most recently as Practice Manager for Social Protection and Jobs for EAP region. During his World Bank career, he was regional Lead Human Development Economist for EAP, Lead Economist in EAP and South Asia, and a founding member of the Global Expert Team on Social Assistance. He was lead author and core team member on numerous flagship World Bank publications, including the EAP Regional Ageing report, China 2030 (co-authored with the Development Research Centre of the State Council of China), and Protecting All, a global strategy on the future of social protection systems in a changing world of work. He also led policy dialogue with governments and managed budget support and investment lending operations across Asia and ECA regions.Prior to joining the World Bank, he was Lecturer at the University of Warwick, UK, focusing on international economic law, and Researcher at the University of London. He has a BA (Hons.) and LLB (University of Sydney); MSc (Oxford University); and LLM (London School of Economics).Some Useful Links* Ageing Asia Research Hub: https://cepar.edu.au/research/ageing-asia-research-hub* Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research: https://cepar.edu.au* World Bank Report: Live Long and Prosper – Aging in East Asia and Pacific (2016)* Forbes article by Avivah Wittenberg-Cox: Women are Voting with their Wombs Get full access to Elderberries at elderberries.substack.com/subscribe

This week on 4-Quarter Lives Avivah Wittenberg-Cox talks with Lyndsey Simpson, the founder and CEO of 55/Redefined, an organisation connecting the UK’s active over 50s with tailored products, services and advice spanning jobs, finance, and lifestyle.55/Redefined’s mission is to end ageism – in both workplaces and society – and add ten productive years to life, while supporting over-50s to get what they want out of life. Recognising a gap in the market, Lyndsey set up 55/Redefined to fly the flag for those who may be getting older - but have no intention of slowing down.The firm has a technology platform connecting active over-50s with content focused on careers and lifestyle and spans three distinct brands: Life/Redefined, Work/Redefined and Jobs/Redefined. Through its employer platform, Work/Redefined, it offers Age Inclusive Accreditation for organisations to become 50+ employers of choice.Before setting up 55/Redefined, Lyndsey Simpson was CEO of HR & Recruitment outsourcer, The Curve Group. Her earlier career was in financial services at Barclays. She has been recognised by Management Today and The Sunday Times as one of the UK’s Top 35 Business Women and is listed among ‘UK’s 50 Most Inspirational Female Entrepreneurs’ by FreeOfficeFinder.Related Links* 55/redefined: https://55redefined.co* Work/Redefined: Services for Age-Inclusive Employers* Life/Redefined: Platform championing over-50s content from life stories, to career advice, fitness & travel* Jobs/Redefined: Over-50s Jobs Board* Profile of 55/Redefined: Forbes article by Avivah Wittenberg-Cox Get full access to Elderberries at elderberries.substack.com/subscribe

This week on 4-Quarter Lives I talk with James Root, Chair of Bain Futures.Part of consulting firm Bain & Co, Bain Futures focuses on future trends. Their new report is titled Better With Age: The Rising Importance of Older Workers.Why Work?The study asked some 40,000 people across 19 countries a simple but fundamental question: ‘why do you go to work?’. The report identifies six archetypes that encompass the diversity of motivations that people bring to their work. You can test which one you are here (I’m a Pioneer). James and I discuss evolving work motivations for people in their 3rd quarters, and the impact on companies across the world as their workforces age.Bio - James RootBased in Hong Kong, James Root has 35 years consulting experience in Asia, North America and Europe. He is the Former Leader of Bain & Co.’s Asia Pacific Organisation Practice; Former Managing Partner of Bain New York; and Former Chair of Bain’s Nominating Committee. An active thought leader, he's written extensively in the business press, from Harvard Business Review to The Wall Street Journal, on topics of talent, China, international expansion and the firm of the future. He’s a regular guest on TV and Radio, including CNN, CNBC and Bloomberg and Adjunct Professor on the faculty of HKUST since 2011, as well as a Fellow of Hughes Hall College, Cambridge University since 2021.Links We Discuss* Better with Age: The Rising Importance of Older Workers * Quiz - What Work Archetype Are You?* The Working Future report* The Working Women report Get full access to Elderberries at elderberries.substack.com/subscribe

On this week’s 4-Quarter Lives Avivah Wittenberg-Cox talks with Bruno Palier, Research Director at France’s elite Sciences Po University, Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics. The common government response to ageing societies around the world is to have people work longer. But ‘people’ aren’t always in agreement, nor are companies always willing to keep them. The French protests at raising the retirement age have been well covered by the international press, but not always well understood. Bruno Palier works on the comparative political economy of welfare state reforms. He has co-led a project on the differing politics of social investment around the world and another on growth and welfare in global capitalism. And his take is that France – and the French – aren’t half as unusual as the media would have us think. The unrest between employers and employees reflects systemic shifts grounded in our new demographics. It’s likely to be coming to the country you’re in. Are you ready?Bruno Palier has a PhD in Political science. He co-directed then directed Sciences Po’s Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Evaluation of Public Policies from 2014 to 2020. He has been Guest Professor at the University of Stockholm, Visiting Scholar at Northwestern University and at the Center for European Studies at Harvard, as well as Jean Monnet Fellow in the European University Institute in Florence. He is a member of the Executive Council of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE). Some Useful Links:* About Bruno Palier* Publication (in French): Reforming Retirement (Réformer Les Retraites)* The World Politics of Social Investment, volume 1: Welfare States in the Knowledge Economy* The World Politics of Social Investment, volume II: The Politics of Varying Social Investment Strategies* Growth and Welfare in Advanced Capitalist Economies Get full access to Elderberries at elderberries.substack.com/subscribe