Francie Genz, CEO of Formation: Workforce Collaboration Requires Checking Egos at the Door

“If we can’t get the private sector to lean in and play the right roles, we’re going to miss the mark,” says Francie Genz, CEO of Formation, a national organization helping communities build resilient, industry-led workforce systems. In an episode packed with practical advice, Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan explores how Genz and her team are working to turn decades of fragmented employer engagement into a disciplined model for collaboration through the NextGen Sector Partnership framework, now active in 100 communities across 20 states. Rather than viewing businesses as passive beneficiaries of training programs, the model positions them as co-owners and co-investors in developing talent pipelines and regional competitiveness. “Part of it is raising the bar on what we expect from the private sector, but then also it's about good process and relationships. It's about getting organized to create the conditions for the private sector to play those different roles.” Tune in for real world examples of how building “shared tables” and checking egos at the door can produce action-oriented partnerships that evolve with the economy, and why the future of workforce development lies in adaptive, data-informed collaboration, not static skills-gap models.