Women in Business
On this edition of Your American Story radio, Raja returns live to the airwaves, in order to take a special look at the impact that women have in the world of business, as he talks with a pair of the most prominent female business leaders in Western Pennsylvania.
-Over the past few years, one of the organizations in Western Pennsylvania that has experienced a pretty significant decline has been the Port Authority of Allegheny County. As the region’s public transportation organization endured a very public multi-faceted battle of increased fuel costs, cuts in the labor force and cuts in routes, things had been looking more and more grim. Enter Ellen McLean, the former CFO of the Port Authority who stepped into the role of the Port Authority’s Interim CEO in February of 2013. Over the past few months, things have been looking up for the Port Authority under her leadership, and after an extensive search to determine a permanent CEO, it was decided that there was no better candidate to fill the bill than McLean herself, in a move that was announced last week.
With the hopes of an actual INCREASE in service metrics on the horizon for the Port Authority for the first time in years, Ellen McLean talks with Raja about her role as head of the Port Authority, and what she plans for the future to continue this promising trend.
-”How do we get the most out of training processes?”
It’s a question facing business, both large and small, across the country, and it’s a question that Pittsburgh-based entrepreneur Jessica Trybus has tackled first hand. Using many of the resources available to her during her time at Carnegie Mellon University, Jessica started Etcetera Edutainment, a leading-edge company that specializes in software-based solutions to help businesses train their workforce in a manner that reaches beyond the tried-and-true employee handbook. Etcetera works with businesses to customize game-based simulation software to help companies put their workforce in “virtual” situations they would commonly face, in order to provide an interesting, unique perspective as to what the employee can expect going forward. Jessica talks with Raja about the story of her company, how her experience at Carnegie Mellon University has shaped the way she approaches workforce training and development, and what the future holds for the way in which our workers train and develop.
