WORKS is empowering the next-generation of business leaders to address inequities mass incarceration.
About
The Wharton Opportunities for Reentry, Knowledge, and Skills (WORKS) program, launched in April 2023 in partnership with Resilience Education and the Coalition for Equity and Opportunity, creates pathways to economic mobility for individuals impacted by the justice system.
Wharton WORKS offers dual impact:
Support incarcerated individuals in gaining the skills needed to forge a path of professional and personal success as they reintegrate into the workforce and society.
Provide MBA students with insights into the issues affecting incarcerated populations to widen students’ perspectives on the transformative power of business education and expand their capacity for compassionate leadership.
Team
Damon J. Phillips
Robert Steinberg Professor of ManagementBio
Damon J. Phillips is a Robert Steinberg Professor of Management at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania with a secondary appointment at the Annenberg School for Communication.
Prior to joining Wharton, he was the Lambert Family Professor of Social Enterprise at Columbia University Business School.
He received his Ph.D. from Stanford University. Before joining Columbia in 2011, he was on the faculty of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business (from 1998-2011). During the 2010-2011 academic year he was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University.
Phillips has expertise in social structural approaches to labor and product markets, entrepreneurship, innovation, organizational change, strategy and structure, as well as social network theory and analysis. His industry specialties are markets for professional services (law, consulting, investment banking) and culture (music industry).
Fareeda Griffith
Interim DirectorBio
Dr. Fareeda Griffith is the Managing Director of the Wharton CEO Initiative at the Wharton School. With over a decade of experience in higher education, she is helping to launch Wharton CEO with the creation of the CEO Lab while promoting and addressing issues of equity and opportunity, and community engagement. As a quantitatively trained sociologist and demographer, Griffith received her PhD in Sociology from the University of Pennsylvania and worked for the last thirteen years at Denison University as an Associate Professor of Anthropology and Sociology and Director of Global Health.
Amina Floyd-Murphy
Program CoordinatorBio
Amina Floyd-Murphy is the Program Coordinator for Wharton WORKS and WORKS Immersion Programs. Amina has spent the majority of her professional career working in higher education, primarily assisting potential graduate students in selecting the best possible graduate programs to advance their careers. After working at both Thomas Jefferson University and Drexel University, Amina found her passion in helping to promote equity and diversity leading her to Wharton CEO and the WORKS Immersion programs. These programs are dedicated to assisting those incarcerated and formerly incarcerated gain access to educational workshops and skills applicable to their lives outside of the prison facility.
