Professor and Senior Fellow
USA
Academic, Advisor, Attorney, Advocate, Commentator - Biden White House, Obama Acting Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Labor. Seth Harris is a widely known expert in diversity, employment and labor.
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"Seth is an exceptional, engaging, and entertaining speaker—emphasis on entertaining. He brings a self-deprecating humor to a serious subject—the business of government—leaving audience participants intellectually satisfied while simultaneously thinking that they had just attended a comedy show with a date rather than an academic conference with colleagues. Seth openly interacted with the audience during the Q&A session. After the talk, he continued to engage with his audience in a professional and personable manner."
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About Seth
Keynote
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Building on almost seven years of service in the Labor Department during an earlier administration, Professor Harris was Acting U.S. Secretary of Labor (and a member of President Obama’s Cabinet) and Deputy U.S. Secretary of Labor from 2009 to 2014. Between the Obama and Biden Administrations, he was an attorney in Washington, D.C., a Visiting Professor at Cornell University’s Institute for Public Affairs and School of Industrial & Labor Relations, and one of the nation’s most sought-after analysts, speakers, and commentators on work, workers, workplaces, the economy and labor market issues, government leadership, and government
performance.
During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Professor Harris made several dozen television and radio appearances, and participated in webinars for numerous organizations, to help Americans understand the pandemic’s effects on the economy, workers, small businesses, and unemployment, as well as the government’s response to the health and economic crisis.
Seth has co-authored three books, including Labor and Employment Law & Economics, and authored dozens of scholarly articles and op-eds on labor, employment, leadership, government performance, retirement, and economics topics.
See keynotes with Seth Harrist’s not your grandfather’s—or even your father’s and mother’s—work world any more. Technology, globalization, alternative work arrangements, increased diversity, and a new mix of jobs and skills have combined to change work, workers, and the workplace in the American economy. And the changes have just begun!
As robotics, autonomous vehicles, and new methods of work develop, and as global labor markets continue to open up, we’ll see change at an exponential rate. Public policy has lagged behind these economic developments and largely failed to address the stagnant wages, structural unemployment and underemployment, and displacement of workers and families that have resulted.
Seth Harris, a former Acting U.S. Secretary of Labor, senior federal policymaker and longtime labor and employment policy teacher and scholar, will diagnose where we are today, and where we are likely to be tomorrow. Building on his extensive experience at the senior levels of the U.S. government, he will suggest policies that would respond to the changes that have already arrived and prepare us for what’s down the road in the coming years and decades.
Millions of Americans have no retirement savings. Millions more do not have enough money saved to support them for the rest of their lives. Too many are drawing on their retirement savings to address today’s needs rather than ensuring tomorrow’s security. In sum, America is in a retirement crisis.
This slow-growing epidemic threatens to ruin lives, distract workers in the workplace, and weaken our economy. Former Acting U.S. Secretary of Labor Seth Harris explains how this crisis developed. He also covers how America’s institutions— government, employers, the retirement industry, unions, and educational institutions—failed to prevent it and cannot seem to solve it.
With a few tips for individuals about how to prepare for retirement, and an agenda for reforming our public policies, Secretary Harris will map a path to solutions for you, your business, and our country.
In 2009, Seth Harris became the Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer of the U.S. Department of Labor, an $85 billion, 17,000-employee federal Cabinet agency. He found a complex organization lacking leadership, direction, a plan, and effective accountability and management systems. Most important, the Labor Department too often failed the people it was supposed to serve, wasting taxpayers’ money in the process.
Secretary Harris dedicated himself to turning around the Labor Department and its 23 operating units. Deploying strategic planning, performance management, and performance measurement, Harris transformed the Labor Department into a leader in data-driven, evidence-based management, recognized by the Government Accountability Office and others.
Secretary Harris teaches critical lessons about performance excellence drawn from his experience in the Labor Department, and helps you maximize performance in your organization and your career.
"I met with the Chancellor and he felt it was the best conference we have had in the 10 years we’ve had it. Seth was a knock-out. He was a great “closer”. You have been a pleasure to work with."
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