Los Angeles, CA (The Hollywood Times) 2/27/2020
Share your background.
Nadine O’Vogel: After receiving my MBA from Golden Gate University in San Francisco, CA, I spent 19 years as a financial services executive in insurance, investments, banking (half of that time, living in Los Angeles). During this time, I created the first-ever dedicated division on Special Needs Planning to serve individual and corporate clients, which still exists today. I also founded one of the first special needs parent advocacy agencies known as SNAP, Special Needs Advocate for Parents. I also served on and with numerous disability-related Boards. Before that, I had primarily worked in the field of Advertising and Media. I received my B.S, in Industrial Psychology from the College of
Charleston in Charleston, SC. I grew up in NY. And I married my childhood sweetheart.
Springboard Consulting is recognized as an expert in mainstreaming disability in the global workforce, workplace, and marketplace. Tell us about Springboard.
Nadine O’Vogel: Springboard Consulting is one of the companies and the primary company under the Springboard Global Enterprises umbrella. Springboard works primarily with corporations but also with governments, educational institutions and others around the globe. Everyone who works at Springboard either has a disability or has a child or other dependent with special needs. Our definition of disability is: someone who is born with or who has an acquired disability whether from illness, military service or age, whether visible or no. So basically, all disabilities. We also provide services to these institutions related to their candidates, employees, and customers who have dependents with disabilities.
What types of consulting services do you offer?
Nadine O’Vogel: Springboard’s Consulting Services include Digital, Physical, Organizational and Benefits Assessments, Talent Acquisition and Management, Learning and Development, Compliance, All Aspects of Organizational Readiness, Market Segmentation, Strategy, Media Relations & Communications, Strategic Development, and Execution, Executive Coaching and more and all of this as it pertains to individuals with disabilities.
Springboard also produces the world-renowned Disability Matters Conference and Awards Gala. These all main-stage events are held annually around the world, each with hundreds of senior executives focused on four pillars: education, inspiration, celebration and networking (you can view all of these events in their entirety on the Springboard website). We also offer a signatory program known as C4DI (Chief Diversity Officers for Disability Inclusion) which is part pledge, part education entirely focused on best and next practices. We have many other programs and events that focus on such things as Intersectionality (Disability, LGBTQ, Veterans Religion), Disability Business Resource Group Forum and The Disability Leadership Development Summit, Regional Summits that focus on specific industries and/or geographies. We also offer many solution-based offerings by Industry such as our most recent offerings specifically focused on the Entertainment Industry.
What are some of the challenges that you have seen?
Nadine O’Vogel: Challenges range. They include things like:
- Businesses thinking that if they align with or give money to or serve on the Board of a disability-related non-profit, they are in fact practicing disability inclusion.
- Not realizing they don’t know what they don’t know and acting on incorrect assumptions.
- Not prioritizing disability and therefore not allocating budget dollars to do the work required.
- Treating disability as an initiative or a one-time program or training rather than seamlessly integrating it.
- Taking a check the box mentality.
- Only interested in meeting minimum compliance.
- Not realizing the size and scope of disability that even those we often don’t see it, it’s the largest and fastest-growing minority in the world, in the US, surpassing the Hispanic population.
- That people with disabilities can also be highly educated (college, masters) And there are many more, but the good news is that a challenge is really just an opportunity in disguise. If that were not the case, Springboard would not be so successful. We have amazing clients who are truly committed.
Tell us about your book, Dive In: Springboard into the Profitability, Productivity, and Potential of the Special Needs Workforce and how it is helping companies.
Disability in the Workplace—A Business Imperative According to Today’s Corporate Leaders.
Nadine O’Vogel: DIVE IN is “Required Reading.”
Dive In: Springboard into the Profitability, Productivity, and Potential of the Special Needs Workforce, enlightens readers regarding the untapped talent pool of people with disabilities, parents of children with special needs, and older workers with age-related impairments. Vogel, the CEO of Springboard Consulting LLC, offers guidance and corporate best practices relative to all issues and initiatives pertaining to the outreach, recruitment, employment, retention of people with disabilities. Dive In includes informative sidebars offering data and inspiration, examples of innovation, and even guidance on etiquette in potentially awkward situations. The book is informed not only by Vogel’s vast expertise, but by statistics, and interviews that illuminate the best practices of today’s global business leaders. “Dive In provides the information and tools to better understand how to remove the barriers to employing this large, loyal segment of the population,” says Cisco’s John Chambers. The book has garnered advance praise from business and civic leaders, who call it “required reading”, “a timely reminder” and “a must-read for any corporate leader today.” Why such strong directives? Because, as Tig Gilliam, Adecco CEO, says, “This is not simply because it’s the right or nice thing to do. Just as with other members of diverse workforces, people with disabilities bring new approaches to innovation and productivity that drive real business improvement. It is also important to consider the benefits to an organization’s corporate social responsibility efforts that engaging this important segment of the workforce will provide.”
This is why Dive In is such an important book for anyone in business. Companies use “DIVE IN” to support training for their Human Resources, Diversity, Talent Acquisition, Work-Life and EEO professionals and hiring managers. Additionally, select business schools are now using “DIVE IN” as a supplemental textbook. Most use DIVE In as a reference book- when I meet people who have it – it’s all tattered with pages folded, high-lighted, sticky notes throughout, etc…
What is your vision?
Nadine O’Vogel: For a world where disability inclusion is not the effect of a particular initiative, but the cause of businesses realizing increased productivity and profitability. Where discrimination, high unemployment, and bias are not unfortunate outcomes but reasons to do things differently.
Share a monumental moment in your life.
Nadine O’Vogel: Like many, I have had many monumental moments in my life – the most monumental of all, one that has impacted every aspect of my personal and professional life is on August 28, 1991, when my first child was born, with significant life-long disabilities.
Tell us about Disability MamaCo.
Nadine O’Vogel: DMama’s mission is to celebrate, honor, empower, encourage and educate moms and other caregivers of children who have special needs; for who they are and what they do….Inspiring them to go further than they ever imagined possible.
What projects are next for you in 2020?
Nadine O’Vogel: We are expanding the curriculum we helped develop for the European University in Rome, Italy. I will be serving as the Writer and Host of two TV shows: a multi-episode pilot on Bloomberg TV called Inclusion at Work and a weekly show on RVN called The Nosh, Taking a Bite Out of Today’s important issues on Disability and Diversity. We are expanding our Disability Matters event to include Latin America an Italy-only event and a Disability Matters Sports event taking place in partnership with British Wheelchair Basketball at the Paralympic Games in Tokyo.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nadinevogel/
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https://twitter.com/NadineVogel
There’s also The Springboard Foundation, a 501©3 whose sole mission is to provide scholarships to college students with disabilities. You can learn more by visiting www.thespringboardfoundation.org