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Under Mayor Andre Dickens, Atlanta is making a deliberate bet: that workforce investment is the fastest path to citywide competitiveness. As the city cements itself as a national hub for tech, innovation, and entrepreneurship, Dickens is driving a growth agenda focused on expanding opportunity and building a stronger talent pipeline for the city’s fastest-growing industries. His administration is scaling training and apprenticeships and using targeted wage and workplace policies to boost mobility and competitiveness. With the FIFA World Cup set to put Atlanta on the global stage, Dickens shares how the city is turning momentum into lasting economic transformation—and what other cities and companies can learn from his playbook.

Andre Dickens, 61st Mayor of Atlanta
Moderator: Ruth Umoh, C-Suite and Leadership Editor, Fortune

Atlanta's Bold Bet on Its Workforce - And Its World Cup Moment

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What a pleasure. What an honor to have you while we are in your city, and we'd have a delightful homecoming. Yeah, I'm glad you all are here. I'm excited to host you here in this beautiful city of Atlanta. The Atlanta Weather Department is doing this thing today. The sun is shining. It's blue skies and beautiful people in the audience, and I'm excited about it. Now, are you an Atlanta native? I know you're a Georgia native. Are you in Atlanta homegrown? Oh yeah, born and raised in the city of Atlanta. Went to Atlanta Public Schools, Georgia Tech for chemical engineering, and then Georgia State for my MPA. All things Atlanta for me and my mom and family, everybody. I'm a, I think I'm a 4th generation Atlanta. Well, let's talk about the Peach State. Atlanta's tech ecosystem, as Kristen just alluded. Too in that intro is absolutely booming. Just looking over the last year, $1.2 billion venture capital, over 1100 new tech jobs added last year. A number of you in the audience, uh, went to Delta, uh, museum aviation museum. I mean, you're partner with a number of Fortune 500 companies. With that massive momentum, what is your administration's formula for ensuring that Atlanta legacy residents are the ones who are filling these high paying tech jobs? Yeah, I mean, I, I, yeah, the things that are working is intentionality around just that goal. Atlanta is growing, but what we want to make sure we have is balanced growth and that growth has to hit all sectors of the, of the city's ecosystem. You know, we don't want too many more first-generation college students. We want everybody to have the opportunity to go to college. I, I was a first-generation college student and went into STEM because someone showed me the opportunities there and showed my parents, my mom that. And so the same is true now, we have this high growth technology sector that's just booming and more investment is coming and companies are really doubling down on their investment in in Atlanta. Our startups are scaling up and going to multiple rounds, but what we also want to do is make sure that we're training the workforce to be prepared for that. So we have technology training programs, some free, some low cost, and then the city of Atlanta and our worksource Atlanta team and our Department of Labor, which I created for these very purposes is to train people. Uh, to go from, you know, poverty to prosperity and to have opportunities and so that's something that we're very intentional around in Atlanta. You think about it right here, we are the FinTech capital of the United States. 70% of the nation's credit card transactions go through the city of Atlanta's network of companies. Uh, so FinTech, we're big in and so we are training the next generation and others to be prepared, uh, for careers in that, whether that's cybersecurity, AI. Etc. so I created the mayor's Office of Technology and Innovation in 2023 to be able to connect founders to funders and to be able to support, uh, the economic development growth of these tech sectors but also the workforce development that should go along with it and it's producing results. They're hiring a 92% of the companies that um have been supported by our tech initiatives are saying that they're gonna hire more people next year than they did this year or more this year than they did last year. Um, and so it's, uh, it's working and of course last thing I'll say about this is you have this great technology talent ecosystem with Georgia Tech being here producing, uh, the nation's largest number of engineers, computer science, yes, and the HBCUs that are here, the Spelman Morehouse, uh, Clark Atlanta, uh, and then you have SCAD, Savannah College of Art and Design that does a lot, uh, Georgia State and, and Emery, all in the city limits, um, are. Really, uh, just, uh, so companies come here and they know they have talent. And so what makes for a good business proposition for the tech sector is talent, access to capital, and customers. The third dimension of that being customers is this is a huge Fortune 500 headquarters base for you, whether that's Coca-Cola, Home Depot, UPS, Delta Airlines, NCR, you name it, we have the ability for tech startups to have customers. Uh, you have all these great schools which you just referenced, including your alma mater, uh. Georgia Tech, uh, but that is a privilege going to a four-year university. You mentioned the workforce development and training programs to get people into the tech sector. What does that entail? Break that down for us. How do you get them interested, especially from the outset? Yeah, one of the things that is, is very critical for preparing people that have never been really exposed to technology sector jobs is you have to do everything, including the wraparound services. You have to do the training. But you also have to have the wraparound services. And the other thing you have to train on is jobs that the, the people are going to hire for in the next 6 months. The last thing you need to do is go to an impoverished community, promise them that this technology that they're gonna, they're gonna train hard on. And then they don't have a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. There's no job, you're setting up people that's been disappointed, and, and, you know, disenfranchised and often forgotten for years, and you show up with some pixie dust and not a real job. So what we do here is we survey the whole landscape of Atlanta companies asking them, who are you're hiring, what are you hiring for? OK, you need Salesforce administrators, OK, you need some ServiceNow people, OK, you need some AW. WS folks, you need, these are the entry level, you need 45, you need 35, you need 25. OK, those are the jobs. We're not about to train this right now because this doesn't seem like you've indicated that there's a job at the end of that. I'm only going to train people in the next 6 to 12 months on stuff that you're going to hire. Last thing I need to do is take somebody from the community that I grew up in, tell them, forego nights and weekends, learn this hard technology skill that only gets them. Training over there, and it's a 10% higher rate versus this stuff that you're saying has about an 80-90% higher rate. And then the other thing we do is we make you make a commitment to come to the programs, to go ahead on and start talking about the jobs, to prepare them for the interviews, prepare them for the resume preparation, getting them down with the lingo of the, the, the tech sector. And the thing that I mentioned earlier is the wraparound services, folks, you know, may have daycare. Issues may have transportation issues, may have other challenges that, that, that you and I may or may not think about because of our, you know, fortunate capabilities of handling those things. But, you know, we have to do all the wraparound stuff to your rent. I need to know over these next 4 or 5 months while you're training that you're not going to get ghost on me because you don't have a place to stay or you can't, you know, daycare is taking over, uh, too much of your income. So we try to solve for that. Solve, I think what's particularly unique about Atlanta is this public-private partnership. Tech companies, they move at lightning speed, as I'm sure you've seen. City bureaucracy historically does not. What is your pitch to CEOs that convinces them that partnering directly with City Hall is a win for their bottom line? Again, we have a bunch of HR chiefs here in the office. Budgets are constraining. They have to justify headcount, especially in various markets. What's your pitch? Yeah, one of my things. That I'm very blessed to have is that Atlanta, I always say Atlanta is a group project. Our corporate CEOs, our corporate leadership, the regional directors, they actually care about the community at large. They're not just looking at those quarterly filings that they got to do to the SEC and saying this is all my life is about, is trying to hit that goal. No, I mean, our corporations hire very good people to be community liaisons, government affairs people, and to Go provides opportunities in the community. And for me, I have to continue to uh give and take rewards and, and, and opportunities for them to engage, keep them on the stages, keep them showing that these folks that the work they're doing is producing results. It doesn't just go into a vacuum when I say, give me $100,000 for this tech bridge training program or, um, you know, uh, Prescola or anybody. I don't just say give me that $100,000 and, and you don't know what the results go. No, we We end up showing you that this person went from here to there and you are a part of it and oh by the way, you can hire them any time now um in our summer youth employment program, our internships, we are co-investing we we actually um have a goal we set a $15 an hour minimum wage for our young people and the average because you know they start at $15 but by the time they're in college they're getting like $18 or $20 so we co-invest with the corporations in that regard and so it's a, it's a. mutual respect, and mutual trust, and I hold them to it. And I, and I tell, and I, and I'm very loud about this to the corporate community. I say, do not call me for any of your corporate needs if you can't call, if I can't call you for some of our societal needs, our service needs. You have the benefit of being in Atlanta as your headquarters with the world's busiest airport, getting you to 80% of the nation's destination within a 2-hour flight nonstop and you ain't Got to catch a connecting flight coming out of here. That's a benefit. The world's busiest airport is a city department. So be happy that we work together and I want you to help us benefit the community writ large. You don't want to be an employer that avoids half the neighborhoods in the city. You want to be an employer that says, my employees can live anywhere here and there's safety and opportunity. And so they've, they've really invested in that, but I, I also twist arms and talk, talk tough. You know everything I need to do to get, I wanna get this job for a little while. I will say I got my 10,000 steps in the Atlanta airport. It's massive. It's sprawling. All right, let's, let's end by talking about soccer. Atlanta is hosting the World Cup, uh, this summer, which will bring certainly a burst of jobs, uh, spending, global attention, which will be huge. How do you turn what looks, at least from the outside, a short-term economic boost into lasting gains for Atlanta's talent pipeline? One that continues long after the crowds leave. Yeah, we are excited. It's about 28 days before FIFA World Cup comes to Atlanta and to the United States. This is 30 years to the date since we hosted the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games. So Atlanta's on the world stage again. I'm excited. One thing that I said from the onset, I was very excited when we won. We wanted to be one of the host cities. We wanted to bring this, you know, we are a sports town and a soccer town at that over the past. Like 10 years, we've really invested in soccer. So we're excited. Uh, but I said I want FIFA to happen with Atlanta and not to Atlanta. What does that mean? And so far too often when major events happen, all the locals run away or they don't come downtown because they can't afford a $1000 ticket or whatever the prices are. And so they're like, oh, you know, the city's doing this thing with these international folks, that, that means that it's going to be bad traffic. So I'm going to, I'm going out of town for the. Two months, so I'm moving to, I'm, I'm visiting other folks, so I'm renting my house out, and I'm not going to partake in it. And we're like, no, this is a once in a generation, maybe once in a lifetime opportunity to host the international community at this scale. We want this to happen with you. We want your small business to thrive. We want your tech startup to be on display for people to see you. Some of those international investors and some of those domestic leaders are going to be here coming for these matches, and the, the ecosystem should not. not just be sports, which is going to be sports dominant for sure, but it's still also an opportunity, you know, these guys that come here, they're not just going to take off their, you know, um, their, their investor lens when they show up in the city, they're gonna say, wait a minute, you got technology companies over here. Let me go see a few of them. Hey, you got these small businesses here, I'm going to eat in that restaurant, I'm going to shop in that place, the art scene, we're going to have the art scene booming. We want you to know we are a cultural hub, so that after the game, Games are over. You come back with your, uh, regional headquarters, your innovation center, you come back with your sales conference, your trade convention, you come back with your family reunion or your family visit. Uh, we don't want you to just see us for just now, we want you to see us as a, a, a, a partner in an investable marketplace for you in the future. Yeah, well, we're right at time. Mayor Dickens, thank you so much for your perspective and your insight. Before I do let you go, one restaurant we have to check out while we're here in Atlanta. You said one, what? Oh, you about to get me in trouble because I know like 30 restaurant owners in my head, a buzzy one, so you, oh, I just thought about the people that'll be mad about the other thing, um. I'll tell you right where you are right now just to keep me out of trouble because it's a proximity thing right here you have one of the best steakhouses and chops. You have Umi, which is an awesome sushi restaurant, and you can go to Emitsu, which is their speakeasy for you swanky cool kids, um, that just want to stay out all night and spend money in my great city, help my revenue. Love you for that, um, uh, and then right. Here in this hotel, uh, the garden room on one side, and then you can't beat the just the, the St. Regis little garden deck area. The summer, summertime, springtime weather is perfect, so get some sun while you enjoy some cocktails and um, you know, just take some selfies and tell everybody Atlanta's fantastic and the mayor's we'll be sure to tag you in. Thank you so much, Mayor Dickens.

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