{"id":4707,"date":"2020-12-17T13:50:35","date_gmt":"2020-12-17T18:50:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/?p=4707"},"modified":"2020-12-18T11:11:07","modified_gmt":"2020-12-18T16:11:07","slug":"leading-in-crisis-jeff-boodie-on-economics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/2020\/12\/17\/leading-in-crisis-jeff-boodie-on-economics\/","title":{"rendered":"Leading in Crisis: Jeff Boodie on Economics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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S<\/strong>OCIAL IMPACT ENTREPRENEUR JEFF BOODIE ’07<\/strong> says he met EMU\u2019s invitation to speak about leading in crisis with some hesitation. \u201cTo be honest,\u201d he said, \u201cmy response was that we\u2019re still in this kind of \u2018wound stage\u2019 for many entrepreneurs who have had to pivot and change business models and generally rethink life in general.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are three themes from his TenTalk:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THE PIVOT<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The pandemic pushed both a personal and professional \u201cpivot,\u201d just as he was investigating expansion into a wider market of Fortune 500 companies. He explains:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started Jobsnap five years ago. It\u2019s a hiring platform that uses video software to help Gen Z job-seekers in underserved communities connect to jobs in the restaurant and retail industries. At the time, using video was and still is revolutionary. I always had this idea that video is going to be the way, but I had no idea that video would be the only way in 2020. Now, we\u2019ve had more and more people coming to me, not from restaurant and retail, but from other fast-growing industries, who are questioning and wanting to learn more about how to best navigate video hiring and interviewing. Now, I\u2019m focused on consulting and partnering with those companies.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

PERSONAL\/PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Alongside this shift, Boodie says, was a new perception of how much his social life was tied to his professional world:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am an extrovert, and for all you listeners out there who are also extroverts, I feel you. My social status and ability to connect with people was my business\u2026 and there was not much difference between the business side of JobSnap and the social side of Jeff Boodie. Every time I went out, work was always part of the conversation. That\u2019s just what happens when you are head of the company. You can\u2019t not discuss it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boodie says the current racial justice movement has also led to awareness among friends and associates about his challenges as a Black entrepreneur in the tech industry. His peers now have a \u201cnew lens\u201d through which to view his efforts to raise capital, build a board, and create new partnerships. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

ACTIVISM<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In reflection amidst the tumult, Boodie saw opportunity for healing in his identities as a social activist, a millennial, and an entrepreneur:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thought if there is ever a year to give back, now is the time. Two months ago, I moved to Florida to volunteer with an organization called Florida Rights Restoration Coalition. I work directly with the founder, Desmond Mead [featured in TIME<\/em> magazine\u2019s 2019 100 Most Influential People for his work on Amendment 4], to help this non-partisan group run by returning citizens. This was not on the map months ago. In January, I was celebrating with my team at Disneyland in California thinking about the next five years and expanding into the markets of Fortune 500 companies and now I\u2019m here in Florida. It\u2019s exciting being in a new place and a new position, even temporarily, to get to work with people whom I believe are actually making a difference and helping to give opportunities to people who have been shut out of democracy for so long.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SOCIAL IMPACT ENTREPRENEUR JEFF BOODIE ’07 says he met EMU\u2019s invitation to speak about leading in crisis with some hesitation. \u201cTo be honest,\u201d he said, \u201cmy response was that we\u2019re still in this kind of \u2018wound stage\u2019 for many entrepreneurs who have had to pivot and change business models and generally rethink life in general.\u201d Here […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":242,"featured_media":4747,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[953,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall-winter-2019-20-2","category-magazine","issues-current-issue","issues-fall-winter-2020-21","feature-issue-highlights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/242"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4707"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4759,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4707\/revisions\/4759"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}