Sunday Speaker: Fight for A Living Wage – Bill Meade

Sunday Speaker Topic: Fight for A Living Wage - Bill Meade

Description:

My talk will cover our Mission and focus at FFLW. I will also cover recent trends in income inequality. I will cover our pledge for a living wage and human dignity. I will talk to our elected official accountability program and rollout. I will highlight why we should forget about a living wage and focus on a living wage.

Bio:

After graduating from Arizona State University he was self-employed as a political consultant in Arizona. In 1980 Mr. Meade become the youngest person to manage a statewide campaign in the history of Arizona.

Mr. Meade spent twenty years in senior level positions with two of the world’s leading financial service companies – Citicorp and American Express. Mr. Meade was recruited out of Citicorp to join American Express and lead the business development effort when American Express made the decision to enter the consumer lending business and add revolving credit products to the company’s portfolio.

Mr. Meade has significant experience in back-office operations and has managed every financial service back-office function directly over his career. He was a critical member of the American Express reengineering efforts in the mid 90’s and lead the reengineering effort for the primary customer service functions. In addition, he spent three years as General Manager for the Benelux countries for American Express and was based in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Like many others Mr. Meade left to join the internet boom in the late 90”s. He joined Webmiles a frequency loyalty company based in Utah, as Chief Executive Officer in 1999.

In 2001 Mr. Meade was recruited away from Webmiles and joined Startek, Inc. as Chief Executive Officer where he served until the spring of 2005. During his tenure as CEO of Startek he led the transition of the company from a supply chain management to a more diverse business process outsourcing company. While at Startek the company achieved record revenues, profits and earnings per share.

In 2004 as CEO of Startek Mr. Meade was given the Allay Award by the Women’s Vision Foundation of Colorado which is given annually to the CEO demonstrating a commitment to women in the workplace. Over a 30-year career Mr. Meade has consistently demonstrated the ability to develop sound strategic plans and drive thorough execution with the result being significant top-line growth while reducing operating expenses and increasing profitability.

In late 2023 Mr. Meade decided to devote the remaining time he has in his 4th quarter of life to addressing the issue of income inequality in America. He founded Fight for a Living Wage which is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization striving to build a national grassroots movement to ensure every full time American can live with dignity and earn a living wage. Fight for a Living wage is an all-volunteer organization, and Mr. Meade is the Executive Director.