Nathalie Gazzaneo is a Co-Director at the Project on Workforce at Harvard University. She leads the strategy, operations, and product development and spearheads research focused on building more and better pathways to economic mobility.
Nathalie has worked her entire career at the nexus of the tech industry, public sector, and academia to ensure emerging technologies are vectors to shared prosperity and human thriving. For a half-decade, she was a Public Policy Manager at Facebook, where she led the launch of social impact digital products used by millions of people. Nathalie joined the Project on Workforce after research and teaching roles at the Belfer Center’s Technology and Public Purpose Project, the Building State Capability Program, and the Public Leadership Credential, Harvard Kennedy School’s flagship online learning initiative.
She holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from the State University of Rio de Janeiro and a Master in Public Policy degree from the Harvard Kennedy School, where she was a recipient of the Claudio Haddad Fellowship and concentrated on innovation policy and political and economic development.
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Selected Research & Projects
This working paper describes the Workforce Almanac, a first-of-its-kind effort to understand workforce training at a system-wide level. To demonstrate the kinds of analysis possible, this working paper compares the presence and types of short-term, post-high school workforce training providers in different U.S. regions and states. Some of our findings include: Of the nearly 17,000 workforce training providers in the U.S., only about one-third are eligible for federal WIOA funding. This suggests that at least two-thirds of workforce development providers operate outside of WIOA, the primary federal law funding workforce development. The Midwest and Northeast are the most served by workforce training providers, while the South and West are the least served. For every 100k workers, the Northeast has 11 providers, compared to 10 in the South. For every 100k unemployed people, the Midwest has 296 providers, compared to 256 in the West. The number of workforce training providers serving the labor force across states varies widely, from 6 per 100k workers in Connecticut to 32 per 100k workers in Maine. The makeup of workforce training providers serving communities in different states also varies widely. Some states, such as Massachusetts, rely heavily on apprenticeship sponsors, while others, such as Maine, Wyoming, and Alaska, rely more heavily on WIOA-eligible providers.
Workforce Almanac Data Portal | Interactive Platform
The Workforce Almanac interactive portal is an open-source directory of nearly 17,000 workforce training providers across the United States. This dataset offers the most comprehensive view to date of U.S. workforce training providers, including provider names, locations, and types, and allows users to explore workforce training providers at the local, state, and national levels. By pairing provider locations and types with U.S. Census data, this resource helps practitioners, policymakers, philanthropists, and researchers explore how workforce training opportunities are serving different areas and communities. Users can also download the data and pair it with any other data–such as labor market demand trends, data on local employers, information about workforce development funding opportunities and priorities, and more–to further explore questions of their interest. Use cases include: Policymakers, including state and local workforce boards, can integrate the Almanac data with other more granular information to improve their decision-making on resource allocation and to work more strategically with training providers serving their areas; Philanthropies can find communities with a high need for investment and better inform their grant-making strategies; Training providers can explore what other providers may be serving the areas they are looking to cover for benchmarking or collaboration purposes;Intermediaries and employers can better understand the local and regional training provision landscape to match learners and workers to existing training opportunities, or from training to employment opportunities; Researchers in the field can explore other geospatial dimensions of this data—including local labor markets, metropolitan areas, and rural areas—to produce new insights into the workforce development sector.
Venture Capital and Public Purpose Playbook | White Paper
ESG and impact approaches, as they now stand, do not typically work for VC-backed early-stage technology companies primarily because of their evolving business models and products. In addition, there are limited methodologies to help startups or VCs plan for the possible negative consequences or anticipation of harms as a result of their respective technologies. We believe it is not only the responsibility of the founders or regulators to assess what the negative effects will be on society, but also the responsibility of investors who take credit for innovation, but not the risks. For this reason, we created a software tool, the Venture Capital Public Purpose Indicator to help VCs and startups anticipate harms and reduce business risks. The Venture Capital Public Purpose Indicator and this accompanying playbook provide guidance to VCs and startups that are interested in preventing negative consequences and in laying a public purpose foundation. They can be used alongside other existing diligence or planning processes.
Selected Media
The interactive Workforce Almanac begins to make sense of this highly-fragmented market. The idea is to help policymakers, researchers, education providers, and philanthropies better understand where funding for short-term training is going and which communities are well-served and which ones aren't. Nathalie Gazzaneo, co-director of the Project on Workforce, says the ultimate goal is to drive resources to the people and places that most need it—and to the training programs that are most effective. “When policymakers and philanthropies, especially local-level policymakers, are making funding decisions, it’s really important for them to have a broader view of workforce training so they can make those decisions more effectively,” she says.
Emerging technologies, demand for new skills, tight job markets, and other factors are drastically changing how people think about and participate in the workforce. As an Associate Director working on the Harvard Project on Workforce, Nathalie Gazzaneo is focusing on what the future of work should look like and what can be done by leaders in public policy, business, and education today to shape a postsecondary system that creates more and better pathways to economic mobility. "Everyone talks about new technologies and the future of work, but what we really need is a lot more informed talking - and doing - to create the training and career systems that upskill and reskill people to be successful in future-proof, good jobs, thereby ensuring economic mobility for them and their families," Nathalie says.
Facebook introduced the Blood Donation center in Brazil, allowing users to register as donors and receive notifications when blood is needed nearby. Over 3.6 million Brazilians have already signed up. Health organizations, starting with partner blood banks, can create events and posts to request donations. Currently available in 28 major cities, the initiative aims to increase blood donations by connecting donors with opportunities through Facebook.