Keisha Gray sits down with Mike Montoya to make the case that cross sector collaboration is not a value statement, it is a muscle communities build out of necessity. And that operational excellence is how missions actually survive.
In this episode of The Stronger Podcast, Mike Montoya sits down with Keisha Gray, Chief Operations Officer at the Spartanburg Academic Movement. SAM is a cradle to career organization working to create long term opportunity and economic mobility across Spartanburg County, South Carolina.
Keisha argues that Spartanburg is the twelfth fastest growing county in the country for a reason, and it is not the one most economic development stories tell. It is a former mill town that learned to collaborate when the economy collapsed underneath it. That muscle, built under pressure, is what a cradle to career strategy actually runs on.
She and Mike make a parallel case about careers. Keisha has led HR for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, run philanthropy at the Mary Black Foundation, and spent years inside regional newsrooms. She does not believe any of it was off topic. Nothing goes to waste unless you decide it does.
They get into Dr. Jack Shonkoff's new place based research at Harvard and why the environments children grow up in matter as much as the relationships around them. Mike closes with a reminder of his own: relationships are the engine and operational excellence is how you sustain the mission.
Tune in to hear why Keisha keeps a photo of a child she has never met on her office wall.
Chapters:
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01:26 The photo on Keisha's wall: who this work is really for
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05:48 Why cross sector collaboration is hard
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07:15 Stone soup and a mill town that learned to collaborate
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10:14 Growing up in Columbia and getting into HR
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13:40 The Buccaneers, the Mary Black Foundation, and the call home
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18:35 From ten to forty employees
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31:04 Dr. Jack Shonkoff: it matters where a child grows up
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35:46 Raj Chetty, Hope VI, and what a neighborhood does to a life
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40:36 The spontaneous moments are where real connection happens
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49:12 Relationships are the engine
Links:
If you want to see what cradle to career work actually looks like on the ground, follow Keisha and the Spartanburg Academic Movement.
Stay strong.
Episode 25