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Inclusive growth feature: Building an inclusive workforce in St. Louis

This inclusive growth feature is one of a multi-part feature on how to support inclusive growth in St. Louis by our advisory committee for the Inclusive Growth in St. Louis Event Series.

In my hometown of St. Louis, inclusive growth means that everyone in our community has access to education and training to obtain well-paying jobs. Inclusive growth would mean women are CEO’s of important businesses and children have access to the right education to one day become technology executives, engineers, scientists, and mathematicians. It means every person, regardless of their gender, race, ethnicity, or age has equal opportunities to become successful and eliminate the wealth gap for their families. 

Throughout my career, I have held a range of technology and business leadership positions—from writing code to leading commercial departments, including consulting, mergers and acquisitions and technical security. Each step of the way, I was one of few women in the decision-making room.

Now I work to create inclusive growth in the St. Louis workforce in my roles as lead mentor and company spokeswoman for Mastercard’s signature STEM program, Girls4Tech, which offers a hands-on curriculum to girls aged 8-12 across the globe. I speak at national conferences to encourage young girls and women to pursue STEM careers because I see how valuable it is for women to see themselves in STEM leadership positions.

My work to support women in the workforce has lead me to other leadership positions such as with the board of the National Academy Foundation (NAF) – STEM Advisory Committee, the board of Girls, Inc. in St. Louis, and participating in community and academic events with Washington University in St. Louis. In each of these spaces, I have leveraged my past experiences in leadership at Mastercard to support the development of a diverse, inclusive workforce in St. Louis.

In my work with the Social Policy Institute on the Inclusive Growth in St. Louis event series, we are listening to the voice of the St. Louis community to better understand how to eliminate the wealth gap in our city. Now we need to shift from gaining an understanding to putting the ideas into action! To me, that means upskilling our citizens, bringing diversity to leadership spaces, and helping to make a generational change for our children. 

Join us for Investing in Inclusive Neighborhoods on July 14 and 15 to learn about strategies for community-driven, place-based investments that support equitable housing valuations and small/minority-owned business growth that leads to long-term wealth.


About Dana Lorberg

Dana J. Lorberg is a semi-retired executive at Mastercard.  Dana most recently held the position of Executive Vice President of Operations and Technology, Product. In this role, Dana ran the Mastercard global payments network—responsible for network processing in support of credit, debit and pre-paid products. In her thirty-four years with Mastercard, Dana has played an integral role in building Mastercard’s global payments network and ensuring Mastercard delivers safe, simple and smart transactions for customers—every time, everywhere in the world.

Dana has been named among the Top 25 Non-Bank Women in Finance by U.S. Banker and the Most Influential Women in Payments by both Card Forum and Payment Source. Dana received a Bachelor of Science in Data Processing and Quantitative Analysis from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.