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Understanding What’s Ahead for America’s Workforce—and How Policymakers, Educators, and Business Leaders Can Reinvent the Future of Work
Friday, March 27, 2026 | 11 AM – 12 Noon EST
Ginn Library, Tufts University, 160 Packard Ave., Medford, MA
Artificial intelligence is poised to transform both the nature of work and the places where it unfolds. A new study by Digital Planet, “Will Wired Belts Become the New Rust Belts? AI and the Emerging Geography of American Job Risk” shows that AI’s projected effects on workforce displacement will be concentrated in high-skill, high-income professions—programmers, writers, analysts, and financial experts—with estimates suggesting up to 9.3 million jobs could be vulnerable and approximately $757 billion in annual U.S. household income at risk.
The geographic patterns are significant: major hubs like Boston, New York, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. are among the most exposed regions, while Massachusetts ranks as one of the most AI-vulnerable states in the nation. Beyond the numbers, this research points to deeper questions about the nature of work and the regional economies built around it.
Join us for a candid dialogue between Johnny C. Taylor Jr., CEO of SHRM, and Bhaskar Chakravorti, Dean of Global Business at The Fletcher School, on the most comprehensive geographic analysis of AI’s potential workforce effects to date– and what policymakers, educators, and business leaders can do in response. Together, they will explore what this means for jobs at risk, for the cities and states most vulnerable to disruption, and for the economic ecosystems built around them.
What the conversation will cover
Whether you’re shaping policy, educating tomorrow’s talent, leading an organization through transformation, or simply trying to understand what this means for your own career, this conversation will give you something concrete to take back.
Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM)
SHRM-SCP, is President and Chief Executive Officer of SHRM. With nearly 340,000 members in 180 countries, SHRM impacts the lives of more than 362 million workers and their families globally.
As a global leader on the future of employment, culture, and leadership, Mr. Taylor is a sought-after voice on all matters affecting work, workers, and the workplace. Recognized as one of the “300 Most Influential Executives in Corporate America” for 2024 by Savoy Magazine, on the “Virginia 500: Power List” by Virginia Business, and as one of the “Most Influential People Shaping Public Policy” in our nation’s capital by Washingtonian Magazine, Mr. Taylor is frequently asked to testify before Congress on critical workforce issues and authors the weekly USA Today column, "Ask Johnny."
Mr. Taylor's career spans more than 20 years as a lawyer, human resources executive, and CEO in both the not-for-profit and for-profit spaces. He has held senior and chief executive roles at IAC/InteractiveCorp, Viacom's Paramount Pictures, Blockbuster Entertainment Group, the McGuireWoods law firm, and Compass Group USA. Most recently, Mr. Taylor was President and Chief Executive Officer of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund.
He is the author of the national bestseller, RESET: A Leader’s Guide to Work in an Age of Upheaval, which, immediately upon its release in September 2021, was in the top three of The Wall Street Journal’s list of best-selling hardcover business books.
Mr. Taylor serves on the corporate boards of XPO, Inc., Flores HR, and Guild Education. He previously served on the White House American Workforce Policy Advisory Board and as chairman of the President's Advisory Board on Historically Black Colleges and Universities during the first Trump administration.
In 2020, he received the Distinguished Executive of the Year Award from the Academy of Management, and he was named 2021 ALA Professional Society CEO of the Year by CEO Update.
He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources and is licensed to practice law in Florida, Illinois, and Washington, D.C.
Dean Bhaskar Chakravorti
Dean of Global Business, The Fletcher School and Executive Director, Institute for Business in the Global Context
Bhaskar Chakravorti is the Dean of Global Business at The Fletcher School at Tufts University – America’s oldest exclusively graduate school of global affairs — the founding Executive Director of Fletcher’s Institute for Business in the Global Context and founder and chair of Digital Planet, one of Fletcher’s flagship research programs that studies the impact of technology on lives and livelihoods around the world.
Bhaskar founded the Institute in 2011 with the mission of “connecting the world of business with the world,” exploring issues at the intersection of business and global context, including geopolitics, technology, security, development, the environment, and the human condition. Bhaskar serves on the Fletcher faculty as Professor of the Practice of International Business and is the Chair of the IDEA Council: Imagining a Digital Economy for All. He was the Chairman of the Advisory Board to the Mastercard Policy Center for the Digital Economy, served on the Global Future Council on Innovation for the World Economic Forum and was Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Senior Advisor for Digital Inclusion at the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress, an Advisory Board member for the Indian Institute of Public Policy and served on the Advisory Board of the UNDP’s Center for Private Sector in Development. He is a consultant to the World Bank on digital for development. Bhaskar has also founded and chairs the Digital Planet initiative at The Fletcher School, that follows the evolution of 90 countries as they transition from traditional to digitally intensive economies. Most recently, as part of this initiative, he has launched a multi-year initiative, Imagining a Digital Economy for All, (IDEA) 2030, which is investigating the role of data, digital technologies, artificial intelligence and applications as a force for inclusive growth, development and productivity. The first year of the research is entirely devoted to the study of the world operating by digital means during the COVID-19 pandemic. He also started the first all-digital degree program at Tufts and Fletcher.
Prior to joining Fletcher, Bhaskar was a Partner of McKinsey & Company, a Distinguished Scholar at MIT’s Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship and on the faculty of Harvard Business School and Harvard University Center for the Environment. He was a leader of McKinsey’s Innovation and Global Forces practices, served on its Knowledge Services Committee and taught innovation and entrepreneurship at Harvard. In a 35 year career, he has been an advisor to CEOs, senior management and Boards of over 30 companies in the Fortune 500 and policymakers at national and international organizations and worked across the Americas, EU, Asia and Africa, and multiple industries. He is the author of the Amazon best-selling book, “The Slow Pace of Fast Change: Bringing Innovations to Market in a Connected World” (Harvard Business Press) and the book, co-edited with Joel Trachtman, “Defeating Disinformation” (Cambridge University Press) and is the creator of the widely-used Digital Evolution Index and its multiple offshoots. His papers and articles appear in top-tier academic journals, multiple books and in widely-read media, e.g., Harvard Business Review, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Washington Post, CNN, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Newsweek, Bloomberg, Businessweek, Barron’s, The Hill, Salon, Fast Company among many others. He was a former columnist on innovation for the Washington Post and Forbes and currently has regular columns in Harvard Business Review, the Indian Express, Foreign Policy, WIRED and The Conversation; he is regularly interviewed by the press, including New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, National Public Radio, BBC, The Economist, MarketWatch, WIRED, CNBC, CBC, CCTV, Times of London, Al Jazeera, Economic Times, Times of India, among many others.
Bhaskar’s prior appointments were as a Partner and Thought Leader at the Monitor Group, a game theorist at Bellcore (formerly Bell Labs), assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign and TAS (India’s Tata Group’s “talent pipeline for leaders”). His PhD in economics is from the University of Rochester, where he was a University Fellow. He is a graduate of the Delhi School of Economics and in economics with honors from Delhi University’s St. Stephen’s College. He was born in New Delhi, India and lives in Boston, MA in the U.S. He still attempts to play squash and is an amateur stone sculptor.
Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.
SHRM-SCP, is President and Chief Executive Officer of SHRM. With nearly 340,000 members in 180 countries, SHRM impacts the lives of more than 362 million workers and their families globally.
As a global leader on the future of employment, culture, and leadership, Mr. Taylor is a sought-after voice on all matters affecting work, workers, and the workplace. Recognized as one of the “300 Most Influential Executives in Corporate America” for 2024 by Savoy Magazine, on the “Virginia 500: Power List” by Virginia Business, and as one of the “Most Influential People Shaping Public Policy” in our nation’s capital by Washingtonian Magazine, Mr. Taylor is frequently asked to testify before Congress on critical workforce issues and authors the weekly USA Today column, “Ask Johnny.”
Mr. Taylor’s career spans more than 20 years as a lawyer, human resources executive, and CEO in both the not-for-profit and for-profit spaces. He has held senior and chief executive roles at IAC/InteractiveCorp, Viacom’s Paramount Pictures, Blockbuster Entertainment Group, the McGuireWoods law firm, and Compass Group USA. Most recently, Mr. Taylor was President and Chief Executive Officer of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund.
He is the author of the national bestseller, RESET: A Leader’s Guide to Work in an Age of Upheaval, which, immediately upon its release in September 2021, was in the top three of The Wall Street Journal’s list of best-selling hardcover business books.
Mr. Taylor serves on the corporate boards of XPO, Inc., Flores HR, and Guild Education. He previously served on the White House American Workforce Policy Advisory Board and as chairman of the President’s Advisory Board on Historically Black Colleges and Universities during the first Trump administration.
In 2020, he received the Distinguished Executive of the Year Award from the Academy of Management, and he was named 2021 ALA Professional Society CEO of the Year by CEO Update.
He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources and is licensed to practice law in Florida, Illinois, and Washington, D.C.
Dean Bhaskar Chakravorti
Bhaskar Chakravorti is the Dean of Global Business at The Fletcher School at Tufts University – America’s oldest exclusively graduate school of global affairs — the founding Executive Director of Fletcher’s Institute for Business in the Global Context and founder and chair of Digital Planet, one of Fletcher’s flagship research programs that studies the impact of technology on lives and livelihoods around the world.
Bhaskar founded the Institute in 2011 with the mission of “connecting the world of business with the world,” exploring issues at the intersection of business and global context, including geopolitics, technology, security, development, the environment, and the human condition. Bhaskar serves on the Fletcher faculty as Professor of the Practice of International Business and is the Chair of the IDEA Council: Imagining a Digital Economy for All. He was the Chairman of the Advisory Board to the Mastercard Policy Center for the Digital Economy, served on the Global Future Council on Innovation for the World Economic Forum and was Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Senior Advisor for Digital Inclusion at the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress, an Advisory Board member for the Indian Institute of Public Policy and served on the Advisory Board of the UNDP’s Center for Private Sector in Development. He is a consultant to the World Bank on digital for development. Bhaskar has also founded and chairs the Digital Planet initiative at The Fletcher School, that follows the evolution of 90 countries as they transition from traditional to digitally intensive economies. Most recently, as part of this initiative, he has launched a multi-year initiative, Imagining a Digital Economy for All, (IDEA) 2030, which is investigating the role of data, digital technologies, artificial intelligence and applications as a force for inclusive growth, development and productivity. The first year of the research is entirely devoted to the study of the world operating by digital means during the COVID-19 pandemic. He also started the first all-digital degree program at Tufts and Fletcher.
Prior to joining Fletcher, Bhaskar was a Partner of McKinsey & Company, a Distinguished Scholar at MIT’s Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship and on the faculty of Harvard Business School and Harvard University Center for the Environment. He was a leader of McKinsey’s Innovation and Global Forces practices, served on its Knowledge Services Committee and taught innovation and entrepreneurship at Harvard. In a 35 year career, he has been an advisor to CEOs, senior management and Boards of over 30 companies in the Fortune 500 and policymakers at national and international organizations and worked across the Americas, EU, Asia and Africa, and multiple industries. He is the author of the Amazon best-selling book, “The Slow Pace of Fast Change: Bringing Innovations to Market in a Connected World” (Harvard Business Press) and the book, co-edited with Joel Trachtman, “Defeating Disinformation” (Cambridge University Press) and is the creator of the widely-used Digital Evolution Index and its multiple offshoots. His papers and articles appear in top-tier academic journals, multiple books and in widely-read media, e.g., Harvard Business Review, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Washington Post, CNN, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Newsweek, Bloomberg, Businessweek, Barron’s, The Hill, Salon, Fast Company among many others. He was a former columnist on innovation for the Washington Post and Forbes and currently has regular columns in Harvard Business Review, the Indian Express, Foreign Policy, WIRED and The Conversation; he is regularly interviewed by the press, including New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, National Public Radio, BBC, The Economist, MarketWatch, WIRED, CNBC, CBC, CCTV, Times of London, Al Jazeera, Economic Times, Times of India, among many others.
Bhaskar’s prior appointments were as a Partner and Thought Leader at the Monitor Group, a game theorist at Bellcore (formerly Bell Labs), assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign and TAS (India’s Tata Group’s “talent pipeline for leaders”). His PhD in economics is from the University of Rochester, where he was a University Fellow. He is a graduate of the Delhi School of Economics and in economics with honors from Delhi University’s St. Stephen’s College. He was born in New Delhi, India and lives in Boston, MA in the U.S. He still attempts to play squash and is an amateur stone sculptor.
Friday, March 27, 2026 | 11 AM – 12 Noon EST
Ginn Library, Tufts University, 160 Packard Ave., Medford, MA
