Televerde and Banyan Labs Team Up to Show the Effects of Prison Education and the Transformative Power of a Second Chance

Phoenix, AZ, October 5, 2022: Building and sustaining a strong pipeline of talent requires heavier investments in education, upskilling, and career development. And in today’s job market, it also requires business leaders to evolve their thinking and expand workforce strategies to include individuals who have historically been excluded from job consideration, specifically men and women with a criminal background.

Televerde, a global sales and marketing solutions company that provides second chance employment and helps disempowered people find their voice and reach their human potential, announced today that it has entered into a partnership with Banyan Labs, a software development company that employs 100%, justice-impacted individuals, to help end the stigma of incarceration and create more career opportunities for qualified individuals with a criminal past.

“As a for-profit company that works with members of the incarcerated community, we know people have questions and may be skeptical about the potential inside U.S. corrections facilities,” said Kellie Walenciak, head of Marketing, Televerde. “To this end, we want to show the world our Televerde operations so people can meet with the talented incarcerated women who work with us. Through our work with Banyan Labs, the public will be able to sit face-to-face with these women and hear in their own words their journeys of transformation and how education, support, and a second chance allowed them to find and fulfill their human potential. These interactions will hopefully spark an evolution in hiring practices that lead to total inclusion in the workforce once and for all.”

The partnership with Televerde and Banyan Labs will bring to life a series of first-person digital video narratives of the incarcerated women who make up 70 percent of Televerde’s global workforce. This digital experience will live on the Televerde website and be developed by justice-impacted men and women who learned coding skills through the Persevere Program while behind bars and who successfully transitioned to full-time Banyan Labs employees once released.

“At Banyan Labs, we’re proud to partner with companies like Televerde that are as committed to elevating the incarcerated community as we are,” said Mark Clark, director of business development at Banyan Labs. “Our partnership with Televerde will show the value that second-chance hires can bring to organizations and why it’s incumbent upon all business leaders to embrace workforce strategies that help build a pipeline of future talent and lead to an economy where everyone can flourish, regardless of background or circumstance.”

The Televerde/Banyan project called, Televerde Virtual Roundtables, will be completed in December with a January global launch planned.

About Televerde

Phoenix-based Televerde is the first and only fully integrated sales, marketing, and customer care solutions organization that delivers revenue as a service and customer experience expertise with a human touch, best-in-class technology, and an operating model that is resilient to shifting market conditions. Since 1995, Televerde has generated more than $12B in revenue for the world’s leading B2B companies including SAP, GE, Adobe-Marketo, and Securus Technologies.

A purpose-built company, Televerde believes in second chance employment and strives to help disempowered people find their voice and reach their human potential. Seven of Televerde’s 10 engagement centers are staffed by incarcerated women, representing 70 percent of the company’s 600+ global workforce. The Arizona State University Seidman Research Institute recently documented the model’s success in a study. The results reveal that participants of Televerde’s program go on to attain employment, earnings, and education at higher rates and re-offend at significantly lower rates than other formerly incarcerated females in the United States. The full study can be accessed here.

About Persevere

Founded in 2012, Persevere is a nonprofit organization that is committed to ending mass incarceration, reducing recidivism, and empowering justice-involved men and women to succeed as productive members of society. Persevere as a whole provides a comprehensive program that includes coding education during incarceration as well as career readiness, mentoring, essential life-skills training, residential transitional living and job placement in the technology sector after release.

About Banyan Labs

Banyan Lab is a software development company that employs 100%, justice-impacted individuals. With a social impact mission, Banyan Labs provides businesses with innovative information technology solutions and opportunities to make lasting, positive social change. Created out of the desire to place Persevere graduates into jobs through an on-the-job training program, their work is proven, professional, and affordable.