Subject: Heather, Elisabeth, Eryn & John - Update on my new venture, Opportunity@Work
From: Byron Auguste <[email-masked]>
To: Eryn Sepp <[email-masked]>, Heather Boushey <[email-masked]>, Elisabeth Jacobs <[email-masked]>
Cc: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2015 00:00:26 -0400

Heather, Elisabeth, Eryn & John,

I hope this note finds you all well.  As I've only been able to catch up
John & Eryn a little bit since leaving the White House, and as I'll be
meeting with Heather and Elisabeth, I thought this context on
Opportunity@Work might be helpful, not least to save time on my
context-setting, so that we can fully focus our discussion tomorrow on the
Washington Center for Equitable Growth.

On March 9th, a few days after leaving my post at the White House as Deputy
Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Director of the National
Economic Council, I helped to launch a new social venture to translate
policy into action called Opportunity@Work
<http://www.opportunityatwork.org/#opportunityatwork>, based at New America
in Washington DC.  Our overall mission is perhaps best explained in this
essay, *We Need to "Re-wire" the Labor Market*
<https://context.newamerica.org/we-need-to-re-wire-e2ea173d6b31>,
co-written with my co-founder Tyra Mariani, who worked with Secretary of
Education Arne Duncan and Deputy Secretary Jim Shelton for four years on
talent policies for teachers and principals, and on the My Brother’s Keeper
initiative.

Because talent is so much more widely distributed than
opportunity, reforming our labor market institutions can both
unlock business value and help create an economy that is more innovative,
productive, dynamic and fair – an economy that works for those who
work. Reforms
to the way large numbers of employers hire, train, and use technology to
accelerate learning and match talent to opportunity can both
unlock business value and shape a better market ‘demand signal’ for skills,
which will in turn enable more widespread innovation in accelerated job
training, vocational post-secondary education, adult learning, and
on-the-job training.

Opportunity@Work’s first area of focus is on information technology (IT)
jobs, which constitute 12% of all open jobs in the U.S. On the same day we
launched Opportunity@Work, President Obama announced TechHire
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSEsuj001f0#t=5m10s> at the National
League of Cities Conference.  To help ensure its success in implementation,
we are supporting TechHire and the wide range of public, private, and
social sector institutions committed to it—21 communities and over 300
employers (and growing) across the country—to enable the widespread
adoption of inclusive hiring and accelerated training into IT jobs, across
all industries.

I’m energized by this mission, and by the outstanding team
<http://www.opportunityatwork.org/team/> that we've begun assembling to
achieve it. We’ve been blessed from the start with committed partners, from
non-profits such as Hope Street Group <http://hopestreetgroup.org/> and
LaunchCode <https://www.launchcode.org/>, to innovative for-profit
companies such as LinkedIn
<https://www.linkedin.com/company/linkedin-economic-graph>, CEB
<http://www.executiveboard.com/>, and Capital One
<http://www.capitaloneinvestingforgood.com/skills/future-edge-get-ready/>, to
the 20 other institutions who made TechHire commitments, to our launching
pad and wonderful home at New America
<https://www.newamerica.org/new-america/new-america-announces-partnership-with-opportunitywork/>
. Both Opportunity@Work’s direct impact and its policy implications are
central to expanding employment opportunity, raising wages and job
mobility, and achieving more robust and more inclusive economic growth in
the United States, by unlocking the potential of our undervalued human
capital.

Tens of millions of Americans can benefit from this labor market rewiring -
such as mid-career industry switchers, un-credentialed workers who mastered
their skills on the job, those who attended college but didn’t graduate,
full-time parents re-entering the workforce, the long-term unemployed,
skilled immigrants, and the most diverse generation of young Americans in
history as they reach for the first rungs of their career ladders.

That’s the basic story. If you want more information about what
Opportunity@Work is
doing – much of it in conjunction with TechHire - you can visit some of the
links below. I would particularly encourage you to take a look at the
LaShana Lewis video, if you've never seen it. Millions of Americans like
LaShana have the potential but not the path to opportunity. Enabling them
to achieve their full potential is why Opportunity@Work exists.

   - Opportunity@Work Website
   <http://www.opportunityatwork.org/#opportunityatwork>
   - Fortune "Work 3.0" Column on
   <http://fortune.com/2015/03/19/job-search-future/>Opportunity@Work
   <http://www.opportunityatwork.org/#opportunityatwork>
   - LaShana Lewis’s Story [VIDEO]  <https://vimeo.com/122463514>
   - New America Conference Panel: O@W, Glassdoor CEO - Rewiring the Labor
   Market [VIDEO] <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmZ3uFqSMK8>
   - June 4th Opportunity@Work Panelwith Senator Mark Warner, Tom Friedman,
   me, Aneesh Chopra, McKinsey,LinkedIn,  – Connecting Talent with Opportunity
   in the Digital Age[VIDEO] <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEcCGsjrnto>

I’m proud of the accomplishments to which I was able to contribute in my
two years focused on economic policy, job creation, and public-private
partnerships in the White House, which has given me a clearer sense of
where we can make a difference through platforms like
Opportunity@Work. Although
I’m just getting started on this next step in my professional journey, so
far I’m loving it, both as a mission and as a joyful daily experience. I
look forward to hearing your news, invite you to share your insights, and
would welcome your support.  See you soon!

All the best,

Byron

*If interested, you can follow **@byron_auguste*
<https://twitter.com/byron_auguste>* and **@OpptyatWork*
<https://twitter.com/OpptyatWork>* on Twitter, **LinkedIn*
<https://www.linkedin.com/company/opportunity-work?trk=top_nav_home>*, and *
*Facebook* <https://www.facebook.com/opportunityatwork?ref=hl>

*Byron Auguste*
Co-Founder and Managing Director
Opportunity@Work

O: 240-600-1112

E: [email-masked]

@byron_auguste <http://www.twitter.com/byron_auguste>

www.opportunityatwork.org

Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/opportunityatwork> | Twitter
<https://twitter.com/OpptyatWork> | LinkedIn
<https://www.linkedin.com/company/opportunity-work>

*Opportunity**@**Work is based at **New America
<http://www.newamerica.org/>*