New leadership assessment platform developed in Houston helps nurture top talent

tapping into tech

CDR Assessment Group's CDR-U platform is taking executive training to help grow and develop talent at every level. Photo courtesy of CDR

What if executive training and professional development didn't just reach the C-suite? A business management company is tapping into tech to bring quality leadership assessments and coaching to all levels with its latest product.

CDR Assessment Group plans to help employees grow at their work, overcome stressors, and increase diversity in management within the workplace with its recently launched CDR-U platform.

"The vision was to extend a deep level of self awareness to all employees," explains Nancy Parsons, president of CDR Assessment Group.

For more than 20 years, the company has developed in-depth assessments and coaching. CDR Assessment Group has now adapted its existing three-pronged CDR 3-D Assessment Suite into CDR-U, a program available to employees throughout an entire company.

According to the company, entry-level employees and mid-level managers make up 85 percent of the workforce. Employers who solely focus on C-suite executives leave behind a majority of their workforce. CDR-U targets these individuals with personalized, AI-style coaching that can be accessed at any time of the day.

"It's really exciting because through this process, now people can really get in touch with their strengths and gifts to a nuanced level. It's not like a Myers Briggs or a DISC, it goes way deeper than that," explains Parsons.

CDR-U features three assessments that ask a series of questions to determine the character, drivers and rewards, as well as the risks of each employee. Rather than a simple report, the program will then offer a personalized debriefing using an AI avatar the employee can choose, which explains the results and coaches the employee through an individualized process.

"The graphics are from your actual results. It's not some generic thing up on the screen," shares Parsons, "We just wanted it to feel like they were being talked to by something that's as close to human as we could get."

After the debrief, employees can access CDR-U's Developmental Action Planning Module to help employees assess their risks "on a deeper level" and "formulate a plan," explains Parsons.

Nancy Parsons is the president of CDR Assessment Group. Photo courtesy of CDR

To Parsons, self awareness is key. "You would be shocked at how often people are not really in touch with some of their best strengths. They certainly don't know the risks and careers go off track quickly," she says, "It's so important that people really know themselves at this level so that they're not under-utilizing strengths."

Understanding themselves also helps employees to "do what they love so they can really enjoy their work," she explains.

At a time when the American workforce has been relegated to a work-from-home model, Parsons feels that the coronavirus pandemic has employees feeling detached. "We're often more stressed or our risks are probably showing more and we feel detached—we feel cut off from our team," she shares, "It's a way to give people some real reassurance."

If team members are feeling especially down, companies can share CDR-U data and create team debriefs to help them through.

"I think it's more important now because people are stressed, they are kind of depressed and this is a way to pull them back," says Parsons.

Aside from a health pandemic, the United States is also experiencing increased racial tensions around the country. Business Insider reports that as companies are speaking out in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, some have poor records of diversity and inclusion in their own workplaces. Corporations like Adidas, Estée Lauder Companies, Facebook, and PepsiCo are just a few of the many organizations making actionable pledges to hire and promote BIPOC within its organization, according to the New York Times.

Women have also been historically marginalized in the workplace, with McKinsey's Women in the Workplace 2019 report showing that "women continue to be underrepresented at every level."

When using data from CDR-U, racial and gender biases are no longer in the picture. "This is the best diversity tool out there because the data is race and gender-neutral. This way we can stop screening out so many women and minorities because their true talent will shine through," explains Parsons. As a scientifically-validated and neutral assessment, businesses have the ability to identify potential leaders who may be overlooked due to human biases.

"It's an objective measure against the rest of the population. It is a self-questionnaire—nobody is rating you. It's a snapshot or a fingerprint of who you are," she shares.

Parsons hopes to help people identify their strengths, stay engaged, and find the path that is best for them.

"When people are able to work in harmony congruently with what's best about them, it's going to change the dynamics of organizations and leadership. . .That's why I'm doing this," she says.

Ad Placement 300x100
Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Property Showcase

Rice University launches hub in India to drive education, tech innovation abroad

global mission

Rice University is launching Rice Global India, which is a strategic initiative to expand India’s rapidly growing education and technology sectors.

“India is a country of tremendous opportunity, one where we see the potential to make a meaningful impact through collaboration in research, innovation and education,” Rice President Reginald DesRoches says in a news release. “Our presence in India is a critical step in expanding our global reach, and we are excited to engage more with India’s academic leaders and industries to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time.”

The new hub will be in the country’s third-largest city and the center of the country’s high-tech industry, Bengaluru, India, and will include collaborations with top-tier research and academic institutions.

Rice continues its collaborations with institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bengaluru. The partnerships are expected to advance research initiatives, student and faculty exchanges and collaborations in artificial intelligence, biotechnology and sustainable energy.

India was a prime spot for the location due to the energy, climate change, artificial intelligence and biotechnology studies that align with Rice’s research that is outlined in its strategic plan Momentous: Personalized Scale for Global Impact.

“India’s position as one of the world’s fastest-growing education and technology markets makes it a crucial partner for Rice’s global vision,” vice president for global at Rice Caroline Levander adds. “The U.S.-India relationship, underscored by initiatives like the U.S.-India Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology, provides fertile ground for educational, technological and research exchanges.”

On November 18, the university hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Bengaluru, India to help launch the project.

“This expansion reflects our commitment to fostering a more interconnected world where education and research transcend borders,” DesRoches says.

UH-backed project secures $3.6M to transform CO2 into sustainable fuel with cutting-edge tech

funds granted

A University of Houston-associated project was selected to receive $3.6 million from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy that aims to transform sustainable fuel production.

Nonprofit research institute SRI is leading the project “Printed Microreactor for Renewable Energy Enabled Fuel Production” or PRIME-Fuel, which will try to develop a modular microreactor technology that converts carbon dioxide into methanol using renewable energy sources with UH contributing research.

“Renewables-to-liquids fuel production has the potential to boost the utility of renewable energy all while helping to lay the groundwork for the Biden-Harris Administration’s goals of creating a clean energy economy,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm says in an ARPA-E news release.

The project is part of ARPA-E’s $41 million Grid-free Renewable Energy Enabling New Ways to Economical Liquids and Long-term Storage program (or GREENWELLS, for short) that also includes 14 projects to develop technologies that use renewable energy sources to produce sustainable liquid fuels and chemicals, which can be transported and stored similarly to gasoline or oil, according to a news release.

Vemuri Balakotaiah and Praveen Bollini, faculty members of the William A. Brookshire Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, are co-investigators on the project. Rahul Pandey, is a UH alum, and the senior scientist with SRI and principal investigator on the project.

Teams working on the project will develop systems that use electricity, carbon dioxide and water at renewable energy sites to produce renewable liquid renewable fuels that offer a clean alternative for sectors like transportation. Using cheaper electricity from sources like wind and solar can lower production costs, and create affordable and cleaner long-term energy storage solutions.

Researchers Rahul Pandey, senior scientist with SRI and principal investigator (left), and Praveen Bollini, a University of Houston chemical engineering faculty, are key contributors to the microreactor project. Photo via uh.edu

“As a proud UH graduate, I have always been aware of the strength of the chemical and biomolecular engineering program at UH and kept myself updated on its cutting-edge research,” Pandey says in a news release. “This project had very specific requirements, including expertise in modeling transients in microreactors and the development of high-performance catalysts. The department excelled in both areas. When I reached out to Dr. Bollini and Dr. Bala, they were eager to collaborate, and everything naturally progressed from there.”

The PRIME-Fuel project will use cutting-edge mathematical modeling and SRI’s proprietary Co-Extrusion printing technology to design and manufacture the microreactor with the ability to continue producing methanol even when the renewable energy supply dips as low as 5 percent capacity. Researchers will develop a microreactor prototype capable of producing 30 MJe/day of methanol while meeting energy efficiency and process yield targets over a three-year span. When scaled up to a 100 megawatts electricity capacity plant, it can be capable of producing 225 tons of methanol per day at a lower cost. The researchers predict five years as a “reasonable” timeline of when this can hit the market.

“What we are building here is a prototype or proof of concept for a platform technology, which has diverse applications in the entire energy and chemicals industry,” Pandey continues. “Right now, we are aiming to produce methanol, but this technology can actually be applied to a much broader set of energy carriers and chemicals.”

------

This article originally ran on EnergyCapital.

Houston innovator drives collaboration, access to investment with female-focused group

HOUSTON INNOVATORS PODCAST EPISODE 262

After working in technology in her home country of Pakistan, Samina Farid, who was raised in the United States, found her way to Houston in the '70s where business was booming.

She was recruited to work at Houston Natural Gas — a company that would later merge and create Enron — where she rose through the ranks and oversaw systems development for the company before taking on a role running the pipelines.

"When you're in technology, you're always looking for inefficiencies, and you always see areas where you can improve," Farid says on the Houston Innovators Podcast, explaining that she moved on from Enron in the mid-'80s, which was an exciting time for the industry.

"We had these silos of data across the industry, and I felt like we needed to be communicating better, having a good source of data, and making sure we weren't continuing to have the problems we were having," she says. "That was really the seed that got me started in the idea of building a company."

She co-founded Merrick Systems, a software solutions business for managing oil and gas production, with her nephew, and thus began her own entrepreneurial journey. She came to another crossroads in her career after selling that business in 2014 and surviving her own battle with breast cancer.

"I got involved in investing because the guys used to talk about it — there was always men around me," Farid says. "I was curious."

In 2019, she joined an organization called Golden Seeds. Founded in 2005 in New York, the network of angel investors funding female-founded enterprises has grown to around 280 members across eight chapters. Suzan Deison, CEO of the Houston Women's Chamber, was integral in bringing the organization to Houston, and now Farid leads it as head of the Houston Chapter of Golden Seeds.

For Farid, the opportunity for Houston is the national network of investors — both to connect local female founders to potential capital from coast to coast and to give Houston investors deal flow from across the country.

"It was so hard for me to get funding for my own company," Farid says. "Having access to capital was only on the coasts. Software and startups was too risky."

Now, with Golden Seeds, the opportunity is there — and Farid says its an extremely collaborative investor network, working with local organizations like the Houston Angel Network and TiE Houston.

"With angel investing, when we put our money in, we want these companies to succeed," she says."We want more people to see these companies and to invest in them. We're not competing. We want to work with others to help these companies succeed."

View All Listings