| Notes |
Colorado’s Swiss Apprenticeship Model
A Letter from Governor Hickenlooper
Colorado has the best economy in the country (U.S. News and World Report) and the lowest unemployment rate in the nation at 2.3% in April 2017. At the same time, we have thousands of jobs that go unfilled every week, from construction to health care to technology and everything in between. Colorado employers here identified a lack of qualified candidates “with the right skills” as the primary reason for not filling hundreds of middle skill positions.
We know that one of the most effective ways to get adults and youth into jobs is to give them real world experience. Work-based learning combines skills training with related employment in real life settings. Apprenticeships and other work-based learning opportunities are a foundational piece of creating and maintaining a talent pipeline for Colorado’s businesses.
Beth Cobert is the Chief Executive Officer of Skillful, a Markle Foundation initiative to create a skills-based labor market that empowers all Americans to succeed in the digital economy. Cobert is leading Skillful’s efforts to convene employers, educators, workforce centers, state government, and others to help job seekers and workers keep pace with the transformations automation and technology are bringing to the workforce landscape.
Her deep experience in talent management and partnership development, as well as her acumen for harnessing the constructive potential of new technologies, uniquely positions her as an ideal leader for Skillful as the initiative seeks to foster skills-based hiring, training, and education practices through innovative cross-sector collaboration in the digital economy.
Previously, Cobert served as Acting Director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) under President Obama. During her tenure, OPM not only embraced new technology to improve customer service and cyber security but also championed recruiting, development and advancement practices to support a talented and diverse federal workforce amidst rapid technological advancement.
She came to OPM from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), where she served as the Deputy Director for Management and the U.S. Chief Performance Officer starting in October 2013. At OMB, she led the efforts to drive the President’s Management Agenda to make government more effective and efficient so it can deliver better, faster, and smarter services to citizens and businesses. Her leadership within an administration navigating ever accelerating technological change daily informs her work at Skillful, which engages both policy makers and business leaders on digital economy workforce issues.
Before joining the Federal government, Cobert worked for nearly 30 years at McKinsey & Company as a Senior Partner in their New York and San Francisco offices, where she worked with clients across a range of sectors, including financial services, health care, real estate, telecommunications, and philanthropy. She also championed the advancement of women into leadership positions and was one of the first to pursue a part-time program and be elected Senior Partner while working part-time. This breadth of experience across the private sector affords her the big picture insights essential for catalyzing system-level change.
Cobert is currently a member of the Board of Directors of CBRE Group, Inc. (NYSE:CBG) and the Princeton University Board of Trustees. She has served as both board member and board chair of the United Way of the Bay Area, and as a member of the Stanford Graduate School of Business Advisory Council.
Cobert received a bachelor’s degree in economics with high honors from Princeton University and an MBA from Stanford University with honors. She and her husband have two children and currently reside in Denver, CO. |