In this episode of High Velocity Careers, Stone Payton has a conversation with Dr. Loretta Daniels, a key figure at the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) and founder of Kindle and Kendrick. Dr. Daniels shares her extensive background in communication, conflict management, and organizational leadership. The discussion highlights her career journey, the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the tech sector, and innovative workforce development initiatives. Key topics include TAG’s Bridge Builders Program, challenges for entrepreneurs, and actionable career advice, emphasizing networking, mentorship, and strategic inclusion to foster a diverse and skilled tech workforce.
Dr. Loretta Daniels, Interim Executive Director, Technology Association of Georgia’, TAG-Ed and CEO and Managing Partner at Kendall and Kendrick Consulting Group, is an expert in organizational Leadership, DEI, conflict management, and communication. As an executive leader in the corporate arena, she has served in executive leadership roles such as Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operations Officer, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Executive Director of Sales Operations, and General Manager. In addition, she has written corporate training manuals Leading by Example and Fast Track to Excellence. As the former Executive Director of Corporate Relations of Kennesaw State University (KSU), she worked with medium and large organizations to define and deliver leadership growth certificate programs aligned with the company’s vision and objectives.
Dr. Daniels has recently created TAG Bridge Builders, a social justice and equity initiative to promote Georgia’s underrepresented tech professionals advance from mid-level positions to senior-level leadership roles, providing access to funding and customer acquisition for tech entrepreneurs.
Dr. Daniels partnered with C-level Leadership and HR to determine leadership development goals, identify training gaps, enable cultural workplace initiatives, and implement gender pay equality and equitable hiring practices. In addition, she served as the University Office of Diversity and Inclusion CoChair and Presidential Commission on Gender & Work-Life Issues. Also, she advised executive teams, including the President and Chief Diversity Officer, consulted as a subject matter expert on DEI challenges and solutions, and supported DEI’s continuous improvement efforts.
As an adjunct leadership instructor at KSU since 2002, Dr. Daniels delivered in-class and online lectures encouraging students to think strategically by applying fundamentals to real-world problems. Courses taught included Corporate Communication and Conflict Resolution, Human Communications, Public Speaking, Writing for Public Communication, and Foundations of Leadership. Additionally, she has designed a Coursera Specialty Certificate program, Advanced Leadership Skills for the 21st Century Specialization Certificate.
Dr. Daniels received a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Organizational Leadership from Johnson University, a Master of Science (MS) in Conflict Management, a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Communication from Bradley University, and a Bachelor of Science (BS) in Mass Communication/Media Studies from KSU. She is a Certified Diversity Professional and the author of two books, For Women Only, Women Mean Business (J & W Publishers, 1992), and Unlock Your Success, a Comprehensive Guide for Starting a Successful Business (J & W Publishers, 2006). Dr. Daniels’ upcoming book, Organizational Leadership, published by SAGE Publications, will be available in January 2025 This textbook will offer a new and comprehensive approach to organizational leadership to address the paradigm shift in our global business community.
Connect with Dr. Daniels on LinkedIn.
This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix
TRANSCRIPT
Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia, it’s time for High Velocity Careers. Brought to you by Kennesaw State University’s Executive MBA Program, the accelerated degree program for working professionals looking to advance their career and enhance their leadership skills. For more information, go to kennesaw.edu/emba. Now, here’s your host.
Stone Payton: Welcome to another exciting and informative edition of High Velocity Careers. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. You guys are in for a real treat, please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with Technology Association of Georgia, Dr. Loretta Daniels. How are you?
Loretta Daniels: Hi, there. Thanks for having me.
Stone Payton: Well, it is a delight to have you on the program. And we did get a chance to visit just a little bit at Fintech South 2024, so I guess I should say welcome back to the Business RadioX microphone. I got a ton of questions, Loretta, and probably won’t get to them all, but I think a good foundation for this conversation would be could you recap a little bit your general career path and how you kind of landed where you are now.
Loretta Daniels: Sure, sure. You know, I always try to start off when people ask me that question, how do you do what you do and why you decide to do it? I always say, Nike stole my motto, just do it. And so, I started off, I received a Bachelor’s in Communication, and got a Master’s in Conflict Management, and then a PhD in Organizational Leadership. While I was getting those degrees, I was working. And so, working fulltime, owning a company, and so I just kind of basically started right out of college in radio and television.
Loretta Daniels: I remember starting my first radio job as a news reporter, it was in Niles, Michigan. I was going everywhere to find a news story. And I kind of transitioned into working in the corporate environment for a while, decided to start my own business, had a pretty successful business for about ten years in the home health care industry, and then was recruited into medical device. There, I was blessed enough to move up the ladder and become a C-suite executive in the medical device industry.
Loretta Daniels: And that time I was also teaching as an adjunct professor at Kennesaw State. As soon as I finished my master’s degree, I was invited to come and teach. So, I started off teaching radio and television broadcast courses, and then I also taught public speaking and conflict management. And my last courses that I taught there were on leadership. And so, I was an adjunct professor, and then I moved on to an administrative role, where I was the Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Graduate College, University College, and then moved over to professional education.
Stone Payton: And you are within a consulting firm now. Tell us a little bit about that work. It’s Kendall and Kendrick is that right?
Loretta Daniels: Yeah, I founded Kendall and Kendrick. We have consultants that work with organizations to help them with leadership development, conflict management, issues that would affect productivity. And so, the consultants are educators as well as corporate executives.
Stone Payton: And then, since you don’t have enough on your plate, you decided to go over and help them out over at TAG, Technology Association of Georgia. Tell us about your role over there.
Loretta Daniels: Yeah, that’s my real gig there. So, with TAG, it’s awesome, I’m with the nonprofit side of TAG, the 501(c)(3). It’s called TAG Education Collaborative. And what we do there, we are really focused on helping Georgia to increase its economy by making sure that the workforce, the tech workforce is in full bloom. And what we do is, you know, when we take a look at our workforce industry, especially in technology, we look at the trends. And right now the trends are great for jobs. Over the next eight years, there’s going to be three million new tech jobs. And if you break that down, Stone, that’s about almost 400,000 jobs a year that’s going to be open. And this is between now and 2032.
Loretta Daniels: And so, there’s challenges there. So, what we do is we try to recognize those challenges and help organizations recognize it as well. There’s not going to be enough IT graduates to fill those positions. There’s just not enough people graduating from college with IT degrees to fill those positions at that pace. And so, what we encourage employers to do is to take a nontraditional approach. They’ve got to be more innovative in how they hire for tech talent pipeline.
Loretta Daniels: And so, one of the solutions that we have is a Registered Apprenticeship Program. And so, that Registered Apprenticeship Program is really geared towards let’s take people who would not typically be in a tech job, like veterans or minorities or women. They don’t have to have a degree. They don’t have to have tech experience. Some will have a degree, like some may have a marketing degree or history or English, but they’re wanting to transition into a tech career. This particular program will allow them to be hired by an employer.
Loretta Daniels: And it’s very different, Stone, from an internship program. An internship program is when someone’s in college and they go through the program, and then they’re back, going back to college, and they may or may not get hired once they graduate.
Loretta Daniels: But a Registered Tech Apprenticeship Program is you are an employee. And so, a company will hire you, allow you to go through training, like for cybersecurity software developer, those kind of tech positions. And the minute that they hire you, you go through your 13 weeks training and you are receiving full benefits. You are paid an apprenticeship wage. After one year of the on-the-job training, as soon as you’re finished with the technical training, they may or may not offer you a permanent position. If they do, you get full market rate for that position.
Loretta Daniels: And this has proven to be so successful. To give you an example, 92 percent of all representatives that are considered apprentices, they come from those categories that I just talked about, you know, the veterans, the women, the minorities. And an employer will retain these apprentices, like, at 88 percent, where you don’t see that retention rate in the industry. And 93 percent of everyone that goes through the program graduates, so we do a great job of selecting the right candidates.
Stone Payton: That is such an impressive stat. I had no idea. And I got to believe there must be so many tremendous advantages for the organization, I mean, you get to custom build your own people, don’t you?
Loretta Daniels: Yeah, yeah. They do. They get to do that because not only do they go through the tech training, but when they start the on-the-job- training, they absorb their culture, right? I mean, they get to mentor them, to coach them, so they’re bringing them in and this is why the retention rate is so high.
Stone Payton: Yeah. And you’re bringing in people with diverse perspectives and different experience bases, which we are now learning that aside from just being good mojo for the planet, that has some genuine bottom line impact on the success of the company, doesn’t it?
Loretta Daniels: It does. You know, we have to have that strategic thought. I have a certification as a diversity professional, and what I’ve learned in my experience is we have to have different people around the table. That’s what helps us to be good at what we do. That helps us to reach out to areas that we may not have reached out to before, because we need different thought. We need different thought in leadership, different thought in perspectives. That’s how it works.
Stone Payton: So, at this point in your career, what are you finding the most rewarding? What’s the most fun about it for you these days?
Loretta Daniels: You know, I love seeing people succeed. That’s just been what I’ve loved all my life. I’ve written a couple of books about how to start a business. And as you know, I’m writing the textbook now about organizational leadership. It just does my heart good to see people who work hard, who are very strategic, and have a clear pathway to meet their goals.
Stone Payton: Yeah, I did know that you had a book that you’re going to be releasing within a few months, I think. Tell us a little bit more about that one, if you would.
Loretta Daniels: Fingers crossed, it’s a college textbook. It’s for undergraduate, graduate students as well. And it focuses on organizational leadership, taking an approach of how leaders lead in different areas, exploring how leaders led in the past and how they lead today, because there’s been a paradigm shift in leadership, and how to incorporate organizational leadership throughout the entire organization, not just at the head. And so, that’s what it’s about and, hopefully, we’ll be able to get it out on time in January.
Stone Payton: Oh, fantastic. Well, some of our listeners are aspiring authors. You’re now on book number three. Tell us a little bit about that experience. Did some of the chapters come together easier than others or did it fall into place pretty easily for you? What was it like?
Loretta Daniels: You know, writing a book is never easy, especially when you work fulltime and do everything else. My first book I wrote while I was living in France. I was thinking about writing a book, and I had the time because I didn’t really speak the language and couldn’t work there. And so, I spent my time thinking, as a woman having a small business, how do I help other women? So, I created a step by step kind of process book and included those challenges that women have when they’re starting businesses back then, and I’m dating myself.
Loretta Daniels: Women, when they started their business, they thought they had to kind of mimic men. They wore suits and ties even. They didn’t exercise that natural thing that women have, like empathy. And so, the book really does talk about here’s what you need to start a business, operate a business, but here’s what makes you unique. So, that process wasn’t that difficult for me. I enjoyed it.
Stone Payton: So, I want to go back to this diversity, equity, inclusion, if I’m using the the right words. Tell me more, I mean, I’m operating under the impression here’s my uneducated observation from the outside looking in a little bit. It seems to me like we’re making some great strides in that direction, but it’s not like we’ve totally cracked the code and got everybody on board just yet, do we?
Loretta Daniels: Right, yeah. You’re right. And it should be a given. It should be the fact that diversity should be welcomed. That D is that diversity, right? It should be welcomed. Because as I said, diversity will help you as a business to increase your profits. It gives you different strategies. That equity part is just simply wanting to make sure the pie is there for everyone who needs to be a part of that. And you need to be inclusive because the work environment is not the way it used to be. Individuals are graduating now and they want to work next to someone who doesn’t look like them. They want to integrate.
Loretta Daniels: And so, it’s really important that we don’t politicize DEI, but we see it as a strategy. Because I call it in my organizational leadership textbook as strategic inclusion, because that’s what it is. It should be just very strategic that you understand you need to have diversity with your employees and you need to be inclusive.
Stone Payton: And I agree, and of course, I would follow your counsel anyway to not politicize it. I wonder if one of the challenges is – well, you know what? Let’s talk about me. It’s my show. I’m a reasonably comfortable, reasonably successful middle-aged white guy, and so I would not intentionally not do a good job. And I recognize, and I’m seeing the data, too, from sources, just how powerful it is for the business.
Stone Payton: But I know one of my shortcomings or where I’m a little short on the skills, I mean, I’ll just admit it, I have had a tendency over the years to kind of hire in my own image. And I don’t think it was like blatant prejudice against a certain constituency. It’s just, I don’t know, I guess we just kind of like people that talk and think and look like us. Is that part of the challenge, like this unintentional bias or not having – I don’t know.
Loretta Daniels: You’re exactly right, it’s an unconscious bias, unintentional bias, and it’s social bias. We all face that. And so, it’s really important that companies recognize that with their hiring process. To give you an example, with TAG, we’ve created a succession planning. Only 25 percent of companies in the United States have a succession plan, which means that we’re ready to promote individuals into senior level roles.
Loretta Daniels: And so, what most succession plans have is it is just full of bias. And so, that bias is when you’re looking to hire and promote someone in a leadership role, you typically promote someone that looks like you. And so, you see a lot of companies, they’ll have a lot of diverse individuals on the entry level, they’ll have some diversity on mid level. But when you get to the senior level, if you look on most websites, you see a lot of white men and some white women in sprinkled minorities here and there. And so, that means that they don’t have a very unbiased strategic kind of succession plan.
Loretta Daniels: And so, our plan removes that social bias capital. It removes that bias so that companies now really are putting the right people in that succession plan. Because stats will show you that individuals will stay with the company if they know they can be advanced. And so, we created this plan. A couple of companies have already started implementing it. And that means that now you have more candidates in the pipeline, more diverse thought, and it’s truly removing the social capital and bias.
Stone Payton: So, in your work there’s the messaging, there’s the communication, there’s the speaking, the writing, but I’m getting the idea that you have some some discipline, some rigor, some structure, some methodology around this to bring to companies large and small.
Loretta Daniels: Yes, you have to. You have to use the data. You have to be able to understand. My experience has given me a unique perspective. As an entrepreneur, I know that we have to struggle and wear all these hats. But as a C-suite executive, I know how important it is to look at that profit margin and to see who’s coming up next, and to make sure those goals are there.
Loretta Daniels: And, again, education. I taught the student to be able to go in and to look for a job and how to get promoted. So, I take that comprehensive approach when I work with TAG to build out these professional development and leadership development programs, and help to manage them to make sure that the workforce is truly meeting their goals.
Stone Payton: So, as you were describing your career path earlier in the conversation, you definitely have what the kids call street cred, Loretta. You’ve been there. I don’t know when or where or how you would find the time, but interests, hobbies, pursuits outside the scope of your work, anything you have a tendency to nerd out about or like to do outside this? A lot of our listeners know that I like to hunt, fish, and travel. Anything you do to kind of recharge the batteries and step away periodically.
Loretta Daniels: Yeah. You know what? I love just spending time with family. I have a deck that I’ve kind of built that my husband and I love going out to. We got a little television out there, sofa. I just love chilling out there sometimes. And I like to travel. You know, I’ve lived internationally. I’ve lived abroad. I like to travel. I love to just spend some time chilling on the deck.
Stone Payton: My late father-in-law, he said it before I got a chance to live it. But he always said that travel really broadened you and you gain those additional perspectives. And getting to know you a little bit, I’m sure the travel that you’ve done has influenced your work as well and that appreciation for different perspectives and capitalizing on the value of people who can see things through a different lens.
Loretta Daniels: It really has. When I was writing the book, that first book in France, I realized in doing my research, in America, it doesn’t take very much for us to start a business, but it’s not the same in other countries. Other countries, you have to go through so many licenses and you have to have so much money to get started. I mean, I started my first one with $500. So, it’s just not the same. We don’t realize until we travel or do research about how good we have it when it comes to being able to start businesses here in America.
Stone Payton: I mentioned earlier in the conversation, I shared with our listeners that we saw each other at Fintech South 2024. How did that event go for you? Did you feel like it was worth your time and effort to be there and hang out with folks?
Loretta Daniels: It was so successful. You know, TAG does a great job connecting people, bringing in industry together to learn and to connect. So, yes, it was a great opportunity.
Stone Payton: Before we wrap, I’m going to ask you maybe to share a couple of ideas on just general career advice and all that, but I want to get a little more tactical and specific with regard to TAG. I mean, we have this jewel right here in our backyard in the Metro Atlanta area. What should people know and what can and should we be doing? Small business, mid-sized business, large corporations, and the aspiring entrepreneur, what are some some of the best ways to tap into TAG, contribute, and receive the benefits?
Loretta Daniels: I’m so glad you asked. All of the above. From the corporations to get corporate memberships, when they have corporate memberships, their employees have the ability to attend the events, connect, whether you’re in sales, whether you’re in other areas, marketing, you have the ability to connect with other industry leaders. Also, as an entrepreneur, you get a chance to speak with others.
Loretta Daniels: To give you an example, our Bridge Builders Program, we have two programs that are really designed for the underserved community, those tech leaders. TAG Connect helps employers – I mean, I’m sorry – helps founders to have this Shark Tank environment and present their businesses to industry leaders, like Honeywell and UPS. They would never get this opportunity. And they have an opportunity to say, “Here, listen to my business, what I can offer you.” And to get a contract, because as a business owner, I know there’s two major challenges. There’s customer acquisition and there’s getting capital. And so, TAG Connect helps those entrepreneurs to have an access to customer acquisition.
Loretta Daniels: And our Invest Connect is a pitch competition. It gives these entrepreneurs a chance to go in and pitch to win $10,000 first prize or $5,000 second prize. But more importantly, it’s designed, Stone, where half of the audience are investors who are interested in minority and underserved tech businesses, and they have access to those individuals.
Stone Payton: What a marvelous opportunity. I know there was some type of pitch competition during Fintech South 2024. And we interviewed the leader, and the winner, and the second place. But, you know, everyone who participated in that found tremendous benefit. So, even if you don’t win first prize in something like that, you learn so much and make so many valuable connections that will serve you for a lifetime, don’t you?
Loretta Daniels: Exactly. Exactly. And we have one coming up, Invest Connect, on October 24th.
Stone Payton: Okay. And, again, just start tapping into the TAG world and there’s all kind of little paths to follow and enrich yourself and help the next person, too, while you’re there.
Loretta Daniels: Exactly. It’s that connection that we make. That pathway and connection through our societies. It’s just a great way to connect. I would encourage anyone, whether you’re a large corporation or business owner, or even just someone in the tech space and you want to connect to advance your career, getting a membership at TAG is extremely beneficial.
Stone Payton: All right. Before we wrap, let’s leave our listeners with a couple of actionable items. I call them pro tips. Just something they could begin to chew on, maybe something to read, maybe a do or a don’t. And look, guys, it sounds to me like your best pro tip out of today is join TAG if you’re not a part of it. And if you are a part of it, get more involved.
Loretta Daniels: Exactly. That’s number one. And since Kennesaw State is sponsoring this, I would say for those students who are juniors and seniors, make sure that you, in your career path, get at least three internships if you can. Look for a mentor and try to make that mentorship turn into sponsorship, that’s what you need to be able to get the best jobs out there.
Stone Payton: Fantastic. Well, Loretta, it has been an absolute delight having you on the show this afternoon. Thank you for your insight, your perspective, your enthusiasm, your wisdom. I can’t wait for this next book to come out. We’re going to continue to follow your story and TAG, you guys are doing such important work and we sure appreciate you.
Loretta Daniels: Thank you so much. Thanks so much for having me on. Appreciate you allowing me to share this opportunity with everybody else.
Stone Payton: My pleasure. All right. Until next time. This is Stone Payton for our guest today, Dr. Loretta Daniels with Technology Association of Georgia, and the entire Business RadioX family, saying we’ll see you again on High Velocity Careers.
