SUZANNE CARMODY, senior vice president and head of core banking sourcing for Citizens Bank, was elected as board chairman of Junior Achievement of Rhode Island at the corporation’s annual meeting June 26. Carmody has served on the board since 2016. Junior Achievement helps educate students about workforce readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy through various programs.
What are your plans for the organization as board chair? Our plan is to continue to expand the number of students and the number of communities we reach. Ultimately, we’re looking to reach 18,800 students by 2021, diversifying our volunteer base so that they better reflect the students we’re serving, achieve better alignment with R.I.’s high-wage/high-growth industries and ensure we have the necessary resources to reach these goals.
Whether it is through expanding financial literacy for students … to increasing the number of high school seniors who participate in the JA Career Success program, it is vital that we continue to expand access to resources to prepare them for the future.
What are some key points students need to learn about workforce readiness and financial literacy? When it comes to workforce readiness, most employers look for candidates with soft skills, such as the ability to communicate, collaborate, be creative and think critically. Students should seek out opportunities to build these skills.
It’s also important for students to start thinking early about financial literacy. It’s better to learn the concepts of budgeting, proper use of credit and saving for the future in the classroom rather than later in life when struggling with a bad credit score or the risk of getting into trouble financially.
What programs does Junior Achievement offer students to help in this regard? For the past two years I have taught an eight-week program called JA Career Success at Juanita Sanchez High School in Providence. This program teaches seniors about career preparedness, where they gain a better understanding of the expectations of managers, specifically how to handle conflict and interactions in the workplace.
Given the state is pushing for a strong skilled workforce, how vital is the organization’s role to educate people on financial literacy and workforce readiness? One of our new signature programs to support this effort is our JA Inspire and Career Exploration Fair, which aims to reach all of Rhode Island’s eighth-grade students by 2021. As part of JA Inspire, students go through in-class programming to assess their interest in skills, research jobs that align with those interests and skills, and find what education and skills are needed for those jobs.
