JobMakers: Recent Episodes
The Ricochet Audio Network
JobMakers is a weekly podcast, produced by Pioneer Institute and the Immigrant Learning Center, in which Denzil Mohammed explores the world of risk-taking immigrants, who create new products, services and jobs in New England and across the United States. Follow JobMakers on Send any suggestions, tips, and fan mail to denzil@jobmakerspodcast.org.
This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed interviews Lindsay Milliken. Milliken underscores the current unprecedented combination of low unemployment and high job openings, particularly in sectors like hospitality, healthcare, and education. She addresses the vital role immigrants play in the workforce, and advocates for leveraging Schedule A, a regulation that expedites the green card process for occupations facing high labor demand. Milliken co-authored an op-ed in the Salt Lake Tribune that proposes updating Schedule A to reflect contemporary demands and streamline the immigration process, pointing to Utah as a positive example of state-level immigrant integration.
This week on Jobmakers, host Denzil Mohammed interviews Natalia Frois, a Brazilian immigrant and CEO of International Business Relations in Massachusetts. She discusses how she supports immigrants and Hispanic entrepreneurs by offering classes, resources, and English education, drawing on her trilingual skills and personal experience. Frois shares how her mission aids business success and community integration.
This week on Jobmakers, host Denzil Mohammed interviews Brad Brown, owner of Blue Frog Bakery in Jamaica Plain. Mr. Brown, an immigrant entrepreneur, discusses his arrival in the U.S., the founding and growth of Blue Frog Bakery, favorite products, community engagement, and the broader impact of immigration in their neighborhood and beyond.
The United States is built on all kinds of immigrants with all kinds of skills and experiences. While politicians might have us believe immigration is a divisive issue, the fact is Americans across the political spectrum agree at least on this: High-skilled immigrants are good for the country, and we need more of them. For Dr. Adam Ozimek, formerly of Moody’s Analytics and now Chief Economist at the Economic Innovation Group, a bipartisan public policy group in Washington D.C. working toward a more dynamic and inclusive economy, not only is immigration economic development itself, but immigration policy is also innovation policy.
Immigrants move for many reasons, and sometimes it can be a matter of life or death if they don’t uproot. But no matter where they’re from, they enrich the cultural landscape of this country while enjoying the freedom and protection the U.S. offers. Sebastian Corbat came to the U.S. for life-saving treatment, and post-op therapy gave him both a new lease on life and a business idea: We should all have access to healthy, organic and tasty foods. So Sebastian went about helping his communities eat healthily with the empanadas he grew up preparing in his mother’s kitchen.
The premise of this podcast is that immigrants are job makers. But does this bear out in the data? Prof. Benjamin F. Jones, former economic advisor in the U.S. Treasury and the White House and now Professor of Entrepreneurship and Strategy at the Kellog School of Management at Northwestern University, shows that not only do the data show that immigrants are far more likely to start a business in the U.S., they are also innovating at a higher rate that benefits the nation.
This week on JobMakers Denzil interviews Chening Duker, founder of GoodPluck, a farm-to-table delivery service that is transforming the lives of Michiganders and is enriched by Duker's personal heritage and global perspective on organic agriculture.
Immigrants are adept at innovation: creating products and services that make life better for all Americans, and bringing their own cultures and practices to enrich their new homeland. For Miriam Kattumuri, immigrant from India and founder of Miriam’s Earthen Cookware, which manufactures 100 percent non-toxic, cookware made entirely of clay and entirely in the U.S., her innovation conserves the environment while taking on the most basic tool to get food in our bodies: our pots and pans.
Miriam Kattumuri is the founder of Miriams Earthen Cookware, a pioneering all-American company that produces all-natural, 100% non-toxic cookware that is designed to enhance the flavor, nutrients, and health benefits of food. With over 12 years of experience in this industry, Miriam is dedicated to creating products that are not only safe and healthy, but also durable and long-lasting. She is passionate about helping people improve their cooking experience and overall well-being using her innovative cookware. She graduated and majored in human psychology in college and is a recipient of the Streetwise MBA program sponsored by the City of Boston. She is also the founder of the "Full Body Nourishment Cooking" Program (launching soon), with trained brand ambassadors in all states who teach healthy cooking for a naturally thriving body.
Immigrants are adept at innovation, creating products and services that make life better for all Americans, and bringing their own cultures and practices to enrich their new homeland. For Miriam Kattumuri, immigrant from India and founder of Miriam’s Earthen Cookware, her innovation is a way to prevent cancers and other diseases, as well as conserve the environment by taking on the most basic tool to get food in our bodies: our pots and pans.
This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Joséphine Erni, Innovation Lead at Swissnex in Boston and New York, and immigrant from Switzerland. She explains how building collaborations between the highly entrepreneurial Swiss and the world’s biggest market, the U.S., gives rise to incredible innovations that benefit the world. She shares how Swissnex, the world’s first “science...
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Dr. Joshua Bedi, child of an immigrant and postdoctoral researcher in entrepreneurship in the Department of Strategy and Innovation at Copenhagen Business School in Denmark. He is the son of an immigrant who relocated from India to Jackson, Mississippi, and started a business. It was a simple neighborhood gas station, but also a symbol of...
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Steve Tobocman, head of the economic development nonprofit Global Detroit, and one of the thousands of refugee business owners he’s assisted, Mamba Hamissi, Burundi native and co-founder of Baobab Fare, an East African restaurant. They discuss their work to harness the immigrant work ethic to rebuild Detroit and infuse it with life and...
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Sheetal Bahirat, founder and CEO of Hidden Gems Beverage Company, maker of Reveal Avocado Seed Brew, and immigrant from India. Food waste is an understudied and underutilized component of our daily lives with huge implications for our bodies and the planet – it is the number one contributor to climate change.
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Dr. Patrick Anquetil, immigrant from France and co-founder and CEO of Portal Instruments in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a clinical stage, medical device company developing a needle-free drug delivery platform. As Patrick shares, there was no way he could have started a business like this in his home country. The spirit of entrepreneurship that...
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Giovanni Ruscitti, son of immigrants from Italy; founding partner at the law firm of Berg Hill Greenleaf Ruscitti in Boulder, Colorado; and author of the just-released Cobblestones, Conversations and Corks: A Son’s Discovery of His Italian Heritage. Giovanni shares his family story, of his grandparents being forced to leave the land they...
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Dr. Liya Palagashvili, immigrant from the former Soviet Union, Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, and affiliated research fellow at NYU Law. Dr. Palagashvili shares findings from research she co-authored on the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program, which fills the gap for international students...
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Josh Smith, research manager at The Center for Growth and Opportunity at Utah State University, about his work to demonstrate the outsized impact immigrants have on the economy and our culture. Josh describes some of the the negative narratives and the “othering” of immigrants, even though they’re part of our communities.
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Khamzat Asabeav, refugee from Chechnya and cofounder of SoftSmile, a software tool that helps dentists provide affordable, quality orthodontic treatment. Khamzat pursued entrepreneurship to make basic services accessible to all, after experiencing a lack of access to basic care as a refugee and a minority. Refugees like Khamzat face terrible...
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with April Ryan, immigrant from Russia, founder and CEO of Red Iguana nail art products, and influencer to hundreds of thousands. April came to the U.S. from a poor town, speaking no English, but through tenacity and inventiveness, she achieved success by creating video tutorials of nail art, and developing a breakthrough product that became a...
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Aki Balogh, immigrant from Hungary and cofounder of MarketMuse, which created an artificial intelligence powered content intelligence and strategy platform; and cofounder of dlc.link, which aims to decentralize Bitcoin. Moving to the U.S. after fleeing post-communist Hungary, Aki and his family did whatever they could do to survive...
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Chet Manikantan, immigrant from India and founder of Aegis Studios, which builds crypto games. Chet was founder of a string of companies and a partner at two venture firms, but he was almost denied the opportunity to innovate and create jobs in the U.S. by our outdated immigration system, if not for a chance encounter that led to a workaround...
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Pedro Zamora, executive director of the Hispanic Economic Development Corporation of Greater Kansas City. Pedro and his organization work on initiatives that are crucial to the economic vitality of the area, and they’ve helped more than 4,700 businesses. Immigrants there are having an outsized economic and cultural impact, and so Kansas City...
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Mei Xu, immigrant from China and founder of Chesapeake Bay Candle, which was acquired by Yankee Candle parent company Newell Brands for $75 million. Mei describes the journey to entrepreneurship, and how she created opportunities for herself. Today, she seeks to empower women business owners around the world, to show them that they too can...
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Cris Ramón, son of immigrants from El Salvador, immigration policy analyst, and coauthor of the new report, Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Economic Potential and Obstacles to Success published by the Bipartisan Policy Center. For the report, he scoured the nation to learn not only what immigrant entrepreneurs need, but what municipalities and...
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Julie King, immigrant from Mexico and founder of Villa Mexico Café in the financial district of Boston. They discuss the challenges of re-launching a career in a new country. It’s not atypical for an immigrant to start at a lower rung of the economic and social ladder than they previously enjoyed – but it’s a win they persevere despite the...
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Daniel Perez, immigrant from Colombia and founder, president and CEO of DPV Transportation Worldwide, based in Everett, Massachusetts. Daniel shares what it meant to tap into his entrepreneurial spirit and become a success, pivoting into healthcare and community service when the transportation sector was impacted by the pandemic...
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Mariam Nusrat, immigrant from Pakistan and founder and CEO of both the venture-backed Gaming Revolution for International Development and the not-for-profit Gaming Revolution for Inspiring Development, both with the acronym GRID. GRID, the for-profit arm, is democratizing the creation of video games with a software-as-a-service platform...
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Yuliya Tarasava, immigrant from Belarus and cofounder and chief operating officer at CNote, a platform that helps facilitate investment in financially underserved communities across America. In just six years, CNote has helped create or maintain more than 4,000 jobs in disadvantaged communities, invested more than 50 percent of capital into...
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Jackie Krick, immigrant from Colombia and founder, president and CEO of ECU Communications in Manassas, Virginia. They discuss the entrepreneurial spirit of the newest Americans – immigrants – and why they are twice as likely to start a business and create jobs. For Jackie, it took a few tries, but she learned the system...
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Artur Sousa, immigrant from Brazil and founder and CEO of Adopets, an online platform that simplifies the work done by shelters and improves the pet adoption experience. Adopets has over 40,000 registered users and maintains more than 300,000 adoption listings. In this week’s JobMakers, Artur describes how opportunity, capitalism...
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Karina Calderon, deputy director of The Lawrence Partnership, about her work to help immigrant entrepreneurs drive economic growth in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The Lawrence Partnership is a collaboration of business and civic leaders started in 2015 that helps by incubating, training, assisting, loaning, basically doing everything they and...
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Evan Silverio, child of immigrants from the Dominican Republic, President and CEO of Silverio Insurance Agency, and founder of Diverse Real Estate, both in Lawrence, Massachusetts. With the example set by his mother, who founded the agency, Evan has achieved success, despite getting into real estate during a housing bust.
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Abul Islam, immigrant from Pakistan and founder, President and CEO of AI Engineers. America needs solid infrastructure to grow the economy, to ensure we can get to work, ship supplies, and travel freely. But who’s doing the rebuilding? AI Engineers is a Connecticut-based consulting firm that builds and rehabilitates bridges...
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Roger Magalhaes, immigrant from Brazil and founder of the firms Shades in Place window treatment installation and Trading Up Consulting, in Franklin, Massachusetts. They discuss how Roger built his successful business from the ground up, took advantage of every opportunity here in the U.S. to advance, and became one of the most influential...
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Dr. Avak Kahvejian, an inventor, entrepreneur and CEO as well as general partner at Flagship Pioneering, a life sciences venture capital company in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For generations, his family was forced to flee from genocide in what was then Armenia (now eastern Turkey), to Syria, Lebanon, and then to Montreal, Canada, via the U.K.
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Dr. Celina Miranda, executive director of the Hyde Square Task Force in Jamaica Plain’s Latin Quarter, today one of the most diverse neighborhoods in Massachusetts. Dr. Miranda knows keeping the kids in school, firm in their cultural identity, and welcoming to all others is crucial to maintaining the area’s renewed stature. And she knows how...
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Theresa Park, Deputy Director and Senior Executive Vice President at MassDevelopment, a group that offers financing and real estate solutions to drive economic growth across Massachusetts. An immigrant from Korea who moved to Lawrence, Massachusetts, Theresa saw first-hand how immigrants built their lives from the ground up, and in so doing...
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Reinier Moquete, son of immigrants from the Dominican Republic and founder of CyberWarrior, a cyber security services provider in Boston, Massachusetts. Reinier shares why he is continuing the entrepreneurial tradition started by his grandmother and mother, who moved to the U.S. in search of a better quality of life for their families.
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Dinesh Wadhwani, founder and CEO of ThinkLite, LLC in Natick, Massachusetts, and immigrant from Ghana. His journey began when his grandfather was forced to flee India, and built a business in Ghana that paved the way for the generations to come. When Dinesh moved to the United States in 2008 as a student at Babson College...
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Dr. Anuradha Sajjanhar, lead researcher for the report Immigrant Essential Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic published by The Immigrant Learning Center, co-producer of this podcast. She found that immigrants, despite playing an outsized role in industries deemed essential. such as healthcare, food and agriculture, and the supply chain...
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Rodrigo Souza, immigrant from Brazil and owner of Comeketo Brazilian Steakhouse in Leominster, Massachusetts. Drawing on the resourcefulness and doggedness of his Brazilian culture, Rodrigo built a successful business here in the United States, creating around 400 jobs since his restaurant opened in 2009. Offering rodízio-style service...
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Gaetan Kashala, immigrant from the Democratic Republic of Congo, co-founder of Globex Corporate, a consulting firm connecting the U.S. to Central and Western African businesses and governments, and also the engagement director for AIM, the Associated Industries of Massachusetts. Gaetan has built a career helping immigrant and other minority...
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with David Keane, immigrant from Australia and founder of Bigtincan, an artificial-intelligence-powered sales enablement platform for leading companies worldwide. David believes that what makes the U.S. special is its culture both of welcoming immigrants and being willing to try new things, to take risks. In the United States...
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Johan Norberg, senior fellow at the Cato Institute and author of Open: The Story of Human Progress. They discuss the many ways in which America is better off because it has been open to the exchange of ideas and skills that created cures, machinery, and technology. However, Norberg cautions that progress is limited as a result of the current...
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Jeff Farrah, General Counsel at the National Venture Capital Association, a D.C.-based group that advocates for public policy supportive of American entrepreneurship. They discuss why we should adopt reforms such as a “start-up visa,” allowing immigrant entrepreneurs to stay here in America so we can benefit from the potential job creation...
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Carlos Castro, president and CEO of Todos Supermarket in Woodbridge, Virginia, a successful business employing more than 200 people. He describes the perilous conditions in his native El Salvador, why he crossed the border to America, and why immigrant business owners tend to hire people like them, in this week’s JobMakers.
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Alex Nowrasteh, the Cato Institute’s director of immigration studies and author of “The Most Common Arguments Against Immigration and Why They’re Wrong.” In part one of this conversation, Alex laid out the facts for us on immigration in the U.S., countering many of the false narratives we hear on topics such as public safety and political...
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Alex Nowrasteh, the Cato Institute’s director of immigration studies and author of “The Most Common Arguments Against Immigration and Why They’re Wrong.” In it, he lays out in simple terms researched responses to anti-immigrant canards like, “today’s immigrants don’t assimilate like immigrants from before,” “immigrants are a major source of...
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Larry Kim, founder of WordStream in Boston, which was acquired for $150 million, and MobileMonkey, a chatbot marketing platform for marketing and customer support on Facebook Messenger, web chat and SMS. Larry’s parents fled to Canada after the Korean War on a one-way ticket. That in turn gave him the opportunity to purchase his own one-way...
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Gary Christenson, Mayor of Malden, the second most diverse city in Massachusetts, with almost 43 percent of its residents born outside of the United States. It’s also home to The Immigrant Learning Center, the co-producer of this podcast. It’s always been a gateway city for immigrants and refugees: from Jews fleeing for safety after World War...
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with John Dearie, founder and president of the Center for American Entrepreneurship, a Washington, D.C.-based research, policy and advocacy organization. Immigration is core to his mission to build a policy environment that promotes entrepreneurship because he knows all too well that the United States was and continues to be built by...
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This week on JobMakers, Host Denzil Mohammed talks with Dr. Bernat Olle, co-founder and CEO of Vedanta Biosciences, about his journey from Catalonia, Spain, to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he continued his Chemical Engineering studies at MIT. Navigating the complex immigration system while seeking purpose in his career, he eventually found his calling and was lucky enough to remain in the U.S.
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Last week on JobMakers, we met Abdul Saboor Sakhizada, a former translator, instructor and manager for the U.S. Army in Afghanistan, now living with his family in upstate New York. He spoke about life as a child of war, and what it was like in the front lines alongside U.S. troops, including Fox News contributor Pete Hegseth. This week, Abdul reveals that he is actively trying to evacuate fellow...
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This week on JobMakers, Host Denzil Mohammed talks with Abdul Saboor Sakhizada, who worked as an instructor, manager and translator for the U.S. Army (and received a Department of the Army Superior Civilian Service Award) in Kabul, Afghanistan. In the first of a two-part special, we get to know Afghanistan and its people, examine the fallout of the government collapse and learn how Abdul is actively working in the most difficult and chaotic of circumstances to get as many people evacuated from Afghanistan as possible. This week, we hear about the fascinating but tragic life in Afghanistan from Abdul, a self-described child of war, and we discover what those 50,000 interpreters had to endure every day, fueled by patriotism and targeted as traitors, in this special episode of JobMakers.
Guest:
Abdul Saboor Sakhizada grew up in Afghanistan, and studied world affairs and other subjects at Syracuse University. He has taught in multiple settings, from military missions to refugee resettlement, and managed diverse teams that developed programs and advocated for the most vulnerable. He has communicated across different cultures, through professional experiences with NGOs, IGOs, and in military and civil society. Outside of work, he has facilitated and created opportunities for cultural interaction, coached soccer, and volunteered to mentor and interpret for newly arrived refugees in upstate New York.
Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/jobmakers/saboor-sakhizada-afghan-translator-child-of-war/.
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Subscribe to JobMakers in Apple Podcasts (and leave a 5-star review, please!), or by RSS feed. For all our podcasts in one place, subscribe to the Ricochet Audio Network Superfeed in Apple Podcasts or by RSS feed.
Follow JobMakers on Send any suggestions, tips, and fan mail to denzil@jobmakerspodcast.org.
This week on JobMakers, Host Denzil Mohammed talks with Jim Stergios, executive director of Pioneer Institute, about why Pioneer collaborated with The Immigrant Learning Center to produce this podcast. They discuss the overrepresentation of immigrants in terms of job creation in America, contrary to the myth that immigrants “take” jobs. For Jim, it is a story that needs to be told because it is at the core of American enterprise, innovation and prosperity; but it is also personal. He describes his own family’s history of starting a business as young immigrants to the U.S. from Greece, and connects it to the common story of America, a nation of immigrant families old and new. And Jim believes the entrepreneurial spirit of yesteryear is the same among today’s immigrants, as you’ll learn in this week’s JobMakers.
Guest:
Jim Stergios is Executive Director of Pioneer Institute, a Boston-based think tank founded in 1988. Prior to joining Pioneer, Jim was Chief of Staff and Undersecretary for Policy in the Commonwealth’s Executive Office of Environmental Affairs, where he drove efforts on water policy, regulatory and permit reform, and urban revitalization. His prior experience includes founding and managing a business, teaching at the university level, and serving as headmaster at a preparatory school. Jim serves on the Board of Advisors at Boston University, where he earned a doctoral degree in Political Science. Jim has been interviewed on numerous news outlets and appears regularly on greater Boston television and radio broadcasts, including WBZ, WHDH, WCVB, NECN, Boston 25, WGBH, WBUR, Nightside with Dan Rea, and WRKO. Jim’s opinion pieces have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Hill, The Boston Globe, and regional newspapers throughout New England.
Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/jobmakers/jim-stergios-on-why-immigrants-are-crucial-to-our-success/.
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Subscribe to JobMakers in Apple Podcasts (and leave a 5-star review, please!), or by RSS feed. For all our podcasts in one place, subscribe to the Ricochet Audio Network Superfeed in Apple Podcasts or by RSS feed.
Follow JobMakers on Send any suggestions, tips, and fan mail to denzil@jobmakerspodcast.org.
What do we know about regugees and the process of identifying, screening and resettling people from foreign lands who cannot go back home? For Jaisang Sun, research associate at The Immigrant Learning Center’s Public Education Institute, and the guest on this week’s episode of JobMakers, correcting misinformation and disinformation about refugees is paramount, especially today with the potential for an influx of refugees who assisted our special forces in Afghanistan and the consequent public discourse around it. Jai clears the air with JobMakers host Denzil Mohammed on refugees and the resettlement program, including costs and benefits to us, and more importantly, he profiles just who refugees are – people like you and me, except displaced and persecuted with nowhere to go, something many of us will never experience.
Guest:
Jaisang Sun is research associate at The Immigrant Learning Center’s Public Education Institute. He is completing his doctoral degree at Syracuse University with research on the deportation of refugees from the U.S. His interests include transnational migration, diasporic nationalism, multiculturalism and refugee studies.
Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/jobmakers/jaisang-sun-gives-the-facts-about-refugees/.
Now become a Ricochet member for only $5.00 a month! Join and see what you’ve been missing: https://ricochet.com/membership/.
Subscribe to JobMakers in Apple Podcasts (and leave a 5-star review, please!), or by RSS feed. For all our podcasts in one place, subscribe to the Ricochet Audio Network Superfeed in Apple Podcasts or by RSS feed.
Follow JobMakers on Send any suggestions, tips, and fan mail to denzil@jobmakerspodcast.org.
Immigrants innovate. Kendall Square in Cambridge or Silicon Valley wouldn’t be what they are today without the innovation and ingenuity of immigrants. But the dense and convoluted immigration system doesn’t always allow for that retention of skill and talent. This week on JobMakers, Host Denzil Mohammed talks with Jeff Goldman, immigration attorney and Chair of Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker’s Advisory Council on Immigrants and Refugees, about how best to ensure that highly skilled and innovative immigrants can remain in the U.S., start companies, and create jobs for Americans. Jeff co-founded the Massachusetts Global Entrepreneur in Residence program for immigrant university students to continue learning, teaching, and innovating. Jeff sees how much skilled immigrants add to our economic vibrancy and innovative edge, and he’s also keenly aware of the tremendous impact on our daily lives of undocumented immigrant workers and what Massachusetts has done to enable them to thrive.
Guest:
Jeff Goldman practices exclusively in the areas of business and family immigration law. He has more than two decades of extensive experience representing startup to Fortune 1000 technology, life science and medical device companies, as well as families, in all visa and permanent residency matters. Jeff is passionate about entrepreneurship, families and the innovation economy. After over a decade leading the immigration law sections at Mintz Levin and Testa, Hurwitz & Thibeault, Jeff opened his own practice in Salem and Cambridge, Massachusetts and San Mateo, California.
Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/jobmakers/jeff-goldman-on-how-immigrants-keep-america-competitive/.
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Subscribe to JobMakers in Apple Podcasts (and leave a 5-star review, please!), or by RSS feed. For all our podcasts in one place, subscribe to the Ricochet Audio Network Superfeed in Apple Podcasts or by RSS feed.
Follow JobMakers on Send any suggestions, tips, and fan mail to denzil@jobmakerspodcast.org.
This week on JobMakers, Host Denzil Mohammed talks with Trevor Mattos, research manager at Boston Indicators, the research center at The Boston Foundation, which educates state and local leaders on the important contributions immigrants are making. They discuss the urgency of this work, particularly in a time of divisive disinformation about immigrants and the uncertainty of the pandemic, and some of the surprising findings on the disproportionately large impact immigrant workers, entrepreneurs and innovators are having on the local economy, from Kendall Square in Cambridge to the Latin Quarter in Jamaica Plain. His research goes further, however, to show how our increasing diversity enriches the lives of all Americans, new or old, and gives us a competitive edge, as you’ll learn in this week’s JobMakers.
Guest:
Trevor Mattos is the Research Manager at Boston Indicators, where his work focuses on race and ethnicity, economic development, gender and immigration. Before joining Boston Indicators, he worked as a Research Associate at The Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy. Trevor has also consulted for the Women’s Fund of Southeastern Massachusetts, providing coordination and research support for the Task Force on Pathways for Women to a Living Wage. Prior to this, he worked as a Research Assistant at the Public Policy Center at UMass Dartmouth. Trevor holds a Master’s degree in Applied Economics from UMass Boston and a Master’s degree in Public Policy from UMass Dartmouth.
Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/jobmakers/trevor-mattos-shows-how-massachusetts-runs-on-immigrants/.
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Subscribe to JobMakers in Apple Podcasts (and leave a 5-star review, please!), or by RSS feed. For all our podcasts in one place, subscribe to the Ricochet Audio Network Superfeed in Apple Podcasts or by RSS feed.
Follow JobMakers on Send any suggestions, tips, and fan mail to denzil@jobmakerspodcast.org.
This week on JobMakers, Host Denzil Mohammed talks with Danielle Goldman, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Open Avenues Foundation in Boston, about their work to help high-growth companies and start-ups retain the high-skilled, foreign-born talent they need through cap-exempt H-1B visas. They discuss the example of Eric Yuan from China, who, after getting rejected for a visa eight times, was finally allowed to stay in the U.S. Here, he founded a company that has become indispensable to so many of us, for our kids’ education, our jobs, our healthcare, and staying connected with family members we couldn’t visit during the pandemic: Zoom. Creating innovation when we need it most, Yuan illustrates how the U.S. benefits when we remove immigration barriers in highly competitive industries where talent is scarce.
Guest:
Danielle Goldman is Co-founder and Executive Director of Open Avenues Foundation. Prior to founding Open Avenues, Danielle worked at Rabin Martin, a strategy firm based in New York City where she built social impact strategies, partnerships, and programs for Fortune 100 healthcare companies. In 2018, Danielle launched a national campaign that supported more than 250 migrant families who had been separated at the U.S./Mexico border with health care, housing, and legal counsel. Building on that momentum, Danielle built and grew Open Avenues Foundation to demonstrate the value of foreign nationals in the United States. Danielle is a World Economic Forum Global Shaper and part of the 2019/2020 Women Innovating Now (WIN) Lab Accelerator program at Babson College. She also serves on the boards of City Awake at the Boston Chamber of Commerce and the One Little Light Foundation. Danielle received her B.A. in Political Science and Managerial Studies from Vanderbilt University.
Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/jobmakers/danielle-goldman-on-why-the-u-s-%ef%bb%bfneeds-immigrant-talent/.
Now become a Ricochet member for only $5.00 a month! Join and see what you’ve been missing: https://ricochet.com/membership/.
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Misinformation and disinformation about immigration in the U.S. is ubiquitous. For Prof. James Witte, director of the Institute for Immigration Research, getting the facts about U.S. immigration out to the public is a challenge. The Institute for Immigration Research is a joint venture between George Mason University and The Immigrant Learning Center of Malden, Massachusetts, the co-producer of this podcast. One of the goals of the Institute’s work is to position the immigration data, research and stories within a framework of inclusiveness, so Americans will understand that they are not disconnected from immigration. Rather, we all, U.S.-born and foreign-born, help fuel this country’s economy, enrich its culture, and make it the powerhouse that it is. Prof. Witte also helps explain the resistance to immigrants and facts about them, and how we can counter that, in this week’s JobMakers.
James Witte is a Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and Director of the Institute for Immigration Research (IIR). Witte, who earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1991, has been a professor at Clemson University and Northwestern University. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Carolina Population Center and a lecturer in sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Witte has written numerous articles that have appeared in journals such as The European Sociological Review, Population and Development Review and Sociological Methods and Research. He has also published three books, Labor Force Integration and Marital Choice, the Internet and Social Inequality and The Normal Bar. The Normal Bar, co-authored with Chrisanna Northrup and Pepper Schwartz, was released in 2013 and made the New York Times bestseller list. Dr. Witte came to Mason in the fall of 2009 to take over leadership of CSSR. Since then CSSR has grown in the amount and range of funded research it conducts. Major projects have included the privately funded Institute for Immigration Research, the National Science Foundation funded Digital Archive Project, and the University Partnership with the University of Karachi funded by the U.S. State Department.
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This week on JobMakers, Host Denzil Mohammed talks with Sonny Vu, serial entrepreneur and investor, about his work across continents to develop new technologies, processes and products that have, what he calls, “positive, planet-level impact.” This is impact that makes lives and environments safer and better, which Sonny views as the core of his faith. Embracing diversity, change and the unknowns of new knowledge was what Sonny’s parents instilled in him from the beginning. Their journey as refugees to the U.S., leaving under cover of darkness, sailing below deck to a camp in Malaysia, finally to be resettled in Oklahoma City, meant they were survivors, and they embraced the transformational change of life in the U.S., as hard as it was at first. People who have been through unimaginable tragedy and hardship often know how to be creative and inventive to survive, even among totally foreign lands, cultures, and languages. Transformational change is what Sonny is all about today, as you’ll discover in this week’s JobMakers.
Guest
Sonny Vu is CEO of Arevo, based in Silicon Valley, which develops products with ultrastrong, lightweight continuous carbon fiber parts manufactured at scale. Before AREVO, Sonny was President and CTO (Connected Devices) at Fossil Group which acquired Misfit, a wearable tech company he founded, for $260m. He previously founded Elemental Machines (remote process monitoring / analytics), AgaMatrix (biosensors for diabetes), and FireSpout (natural language processing). Sonny is a founder of Alabaster, with investments in 30+ deeptech startups. Previously, he worked at Microsoft Research in NLP under Kai-Fu Lee, pursued a Linguistics PhD at MIT under Noam Chomsky, and studied math at UIUC.
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Subscribe to JobMakers in Apple Podcasts (and leave a 5-star review, please!), or by RSS feed. For all our podcasts in one place, subscribe to the Ricochet Audio Network Superfeed in Apple Podcasts or by RSS feed.
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This week on JobMakers, Host Denzil Mohammed talks with Shane Smyth, owner of Hugh O’Neill’s Irish Pub in Malden, and co-owner of five more restaurants in Newton and Boston, one of which he launched during the pandemic. Shane shares why he views immigrant workers as the backbone of the restaurant industry (immigrants account for over 40 percent of our agricultural workforce and one-fifth of our food prep and serving workforce), and the tremendous skills and drive they bring. Shane offers strategies for restaurants to survive crises, something that cannot happen without immigrants, as you’ll find out in this week’s JobMakers.
Guest:
Shane Smyth is owner of Hugh O’Neill’s pub in Malden, Massachusetts, as well as other restaurants in the Greater Boston area including Buttonwood, Sycamore and Little Big Diner.
Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/jobmakers/shane-smyth-on-how-immigrants-saved-restaurants/.
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This week on JobMakers, Host Denzil Mohammed talks with Anita Worden, renewable energy business entrepreneur, about her work to improve representation of women in crucial economic sectors like technology, a place where they can innovate and have real impact. Anita was born in England of Indian parents, grew up in Algeria, moved to the U.S. as a teenager, and attended MIT. While still a student, she co-founded her first company, Solectria Corporation, in 1989, and then went on to found Solectria Renewables in 2005, both of which were acquired. Now retired, Anita is working to promote tech as a viable, lucrative and satisfying career choice for women and girls, just as she’s educating Americans about her passions, climate change and shifting the narrative around immigrants in the U.S.
Guest:
Anita Worden is a Partner at Lightspeed Energy, where she helps develop partnerships, technology and innovative products and system designs for renewable energy and transportation, including energy systems for advanced electric vehicles. She co-founded Yaskawa Solectria Solar, Solectria Renewables, LLC, and Solectria Corporation, businesses which she led over the last 27 years. Anita is an advocate for ESOL programs in Lawrence and surrounding areas to socially and economically uplift immigrants and refugees and capitalize on their skills. She is a Trustee of the Essex County Community Foundation, Northern Essex Community College, Enterprise Bank, and Youth Development Organization. She earned an engineering degree from MIT.
Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/jobmakers/anita-worden-takes-immigrants-skills-to-the-next-level/.
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This week on JobMakers, Host Denzil Mohammed talks with David Dyssegaard Kallick, Deputy Director of the nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank Fiscal Policy Institute and Assistant Visiting Professor at the Pratt Institute, on the impact of immigrants in local and national settings. And what he’s found should come as no surprise: immigrants and refugees are a net benefit to the U.S. and always have been. In fact, we owe a lot to immigration for revitalizing metro U.S. after population loss and economic decline since the 1960s, enriching our culture and cuisine, making our communities safer, creating jobs and businesses, and giving us a competitive edge when it comes to innovation, as you’ll find out in this week’s JobMakers podcast.
Guest:
David Dyssegaard Kallick is Assistant Visiting Professor at the Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment, where he teaches Urban Economics. Kallick is also Deputy Director of the Fiscal Policy Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and education organization that examines New York State economic and budget issues, and he is Director of FPI’s Immigration Research Initiative, which looks at immigration in New York and around the country. Kallick has worked and written about the rebuilding of New York after 9/11, Social Security, globalization, and European economic and social policies—particularly those of Denmark. He was for eight years editor of Social Policy magazine.
Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/jobmakers/david-dyssegaard-kallick-on-the-%ef%bb%bffacts-about-immigration/.
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