Wan-Lae works with a range of organizations on topics related to higher education, workforce development, and the Future of Work. With post-secondary institutions, she works with leadership and faculty in designing differentiated and financially sustainable institutional strategies, with a focus on improving student completion and employment outcomes. She supports state and local entities, nonprofits, and coalitions, in designing and implementing strategies and initiatives that will create a more inclusive and dynamic workforce ecosystem.
In her work, Wan-Lae takes a systems view and approach, understanding how to magnify, collaborate with, and enhance the assets and efforts of the key players in the workforce system. Before re-joining McKinsey in 2017, she spent two years at the Markle Foundation, leading the design and launch of Skillful, an initiative to create a skills-based labor market for all workers.
Examples of Wan-Lae's recent client work include the following:
• helping lead Taskforce that consists of Presidents and Chancellors of 35+ institutions across the country who are working together to better prepare students and graduates in a post-pandemic economy and to reimagine higher education. Goal is to launch a set of initiatives by end of 2020
• partnering with a large economic development agency of a US state to design and launch a suite of upskilling and reskilling programs to help drive post-COVID economic recovery
• working with the administration and faculty of a private higher-education institution to pursue financial and operational transformation while defining a longer-term vision for differentiation
• developing a large public university’s strategy and robust portfolio of initiatives focused on preparing students for the Future of Work while defining a research agenda to boost the institution’s relevance and ranking