Navigating Tech and Talent

Businesses navigating today’s shifting landscape of tech, legislature, and culture need to be informed - pronto. Welcome to Espresso Talks, a monthly newsletter in a bite-sized ‘snackable’ format.

1. Consultancy Change - Accenture recently hired Karalee Close to lead the consultancy’s Talent & Organization practice, “as our clients reinvent their organizations with technology, data and AI, they need … new ways of working and reskill and upskill their people.” This signals a shift in how consulting firms view organizational change through the lens of people and technology.?
2. Are we green yet? Healthtech has a long way to go - BCG points out that MedTech generates tons of unrecycled waste through single-use disposable products in a new study. Also, only 3 of the top 20 MedTech companies have set net-zero carbon emissions goals, meaning the sector is ripe for disruption.?
3. Critical Thinking: the CIA’s official guide to sabotaging business meetings resurfaces. Managers take note. If your colleagues are guilty of any of these practices they just might be spies ??? Does any of this sound familiar?

From ‘Simple Sabotage’ a 1944 CIA how-to:

• Insist on doing everything through "channels." Never permit shortcuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.
• Make "speeches." Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your "points" by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences.
• When possible, refer all matters to committees, for "further study and consideration." Attempt to make the committee as large as possible — never less than five.
• Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
• Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, and resolutions.
• Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.
• Advocate "caution." Be "reasonable" and urge your fellow conferees to be "reasonable" and avoid haste which might result in embarrassment or difficulties later on.

1. Backlash against DEI in booming Southeast States continues - A North Carolina University committee quickly passed a policy change that will likely eliminate DEI-related jobs throughout NCU institutions. If NSC initiates the ban it would mirror similar changes made to Georgia and Florida’s higher education institutions. Is the divisive topic collapsing?
2. Startups Leveraging AI Win - Healthtech startups that leverage AI to sort through and make use of the vast amount of data generated by the medical devices realm are attracting the attention of investors as applications in this growing tech sector emerge.?

In The Waste Land T.S. Eliot wrote April is the Cruelest Month breeding lilacs out of the frozen ground, but at PQE Group we’ve taken a sunnier stance. New advancements in AI are paving the way for new ways of hiring, and new opportunities for talent. Across the board, we’re seeing AI-enabled startups that utilize Medtech’s vast troves of data receive funding from VCs.?

As the importance of AI becomes more relevant, consultancies will have to adapt or fail under this new paradigm. Paramount to succeeding in this new environment will be an institution’s ability to garner, maintain, and measure their level of digital trust so all shareholders can make well-informed decisions while fine-tuning their strategic imperatives.?

Healthtech is a long way from green, but opportunities for change are on the horizon - watch this space.

Regional differences in the US are leading to a split for companies' DEI efforts with states in the South and in places like California where affirmative action was already tried (but failed) standing against hiring along lines of physical markers like gender and race.

Companies seeking to enter the US market under EU rules should be aware of this patchwork legislature while SCOTUS works out the Constitutionality of DEI programs at the Federal (National) level.??