146: Yvena Atkins (Accenture)

Yvena Atkins on Innovation City

“Come with an idea! Come with a collaborative spirit! Come with a bias for action!” – Yvena Atkins

Welcome to Season 3 of Innovation City, a podcast featuring innovators, creators, and disruptors to discover how business is changing in the modern world.

Created and produced by SLAM! Agency in cooperation with Venture Cafe St. Louis and Venture Cafe Miami, Innovation City gives you an inside look at how rapidly business and culture are changing thanks to increasing diversity and inclusion, heightened creativity, and a stronger and better-connected business community. Venture Cafe is the largest combined gathering of entrepreneurs and innovators anywhere in the world. Events are held every Thursday in St. Louis, Miami, and other leading innovation cities around the globe.

Today’s guest is Yvena Atkins, Strategy Manager for Accenture. Accenture is a leading global professional services company, providing a broad range of services in strategy and consulting, interactive, technology and operations. Yvena is the kind of thinker that can and will break barriers. She understands how to make connections to solve hard problems and drive innovation. She works toward meaningful solutions with insight, empathy, and a purpose grounded in personal and professional experience. In this episode, Tyler and Leigh-Ann lean in and listen to Yvena talk about what it really takes to infuse innovation to help companies and communities grow, how intelligent technologies are going to change the way we live and work, the challenges of making a collective impact, and much more!

They discuss:

• Uncovering the challenges and risks that under resourced communities will face in new workforces
• How to develop and amplify workforce solutions through pilot programs like the St. Louis Promise Zone
• How public and private sectors can come together to make a collective impact
• The importance of partnering with and implementing support services alongside workforce training efforts
• Taking a holistic approach to transforming workforces
• Defining purpose-driven work
• How life changing opportunities start with accessibility
• Why empathetic listening is critical to serving communities
• Finding ways to amplify the voices of workers
• Data driven decision making
• Creating collaborative ecosystems

Lightning Round:

• What do you dream of achieving one day?
  • Being able to have a villa in Haiti named after my father
• What virtue do you want more of in your life?
  • Empathy
• What is your perfect day?
  • Have a cup of tea
  • Play with my cats
  • Cook
  • Spending time with people I love
  • Do work that fulfills me
• What’s your favorite dish to cook?
  • Rice and peas
• What makes you lose track of time?
  • Research