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How to Become a Global Citizen
Girl Scout alum Janeen Uzzell is the chief executive officer of the National Society of Black Engineers, and she has spent most of her career living and working abroad.
But as a child, she could only dream of these experiences. Janeen grew up in Plainfield, New Jersey, where she was a Girl Scout from Brownies through Seniors.
“I went to mostly white Catholic school and wore a uniform every day, so there were two instances where I had a chance to dress up,” she says, adding that those two instances were when she got to wear her Girl Scout uniform and her choir robe.
In addition to the racial divide between Janeen and her classmates, she was bullied because of her weight.
“I was overweight, so my school uniform was shorter in the back than the front. My mom would take the waistband off my unform, bring the front up, and sew it back in.”
“But my Girl Scout uniform, with its sash and badges—it was like armor,” Janeen says. “We got to wear it to school when we had meetings. It was like a badge of honor—literally, I wore my accomplishments on my chest. It was important to me because my uniform made me part of a tribe.”
For someone who felt steeped in insecurity, those moments felt safe.
Janeen went on to study mechanical engineering, and then she earned her MBA. She became used to being one of just a few women—and the only black woman—in her classes.
“I learned to thrive where I am the first, the only, and the different,” she explains. “Even today, I am always referred to as ‘pioneering’ and ‘inaugural.’ There’s a lot of discomfort in that.”
She says that her childhood experiences—both the moments that made her feel like an outsider and those ones as a Girl Scout—helped set her up for success.
“If we were doing something hard in college, I used to think ‘I can do this; I was a Girl Scout,’” Janeen recalls.
It’s that very confidence that she has leaned on as an adult, spending much of her career living and working abroad.
“If you want to be a global citizen, you have to be open to having experiences outside your community,” Janeen says. “It’s uncomfortable, and it should be.”
So what else do you need to set yourself up for success in an international career that allows you to work abroad? Here, Janeen shares her best advice for other women who want to experience the world in this way.
1. Be open to feeling uncomfortable.
“Anywhere you go, you will be the outsider—and you have to be okay with that,” Janeen explains. “You have to understand that differences are not wrong, they’re just different—and it’s an opportunity to change your mindset. I now have a global mindset because I have been exposed to the world.”
2. Make yourself comfortable with imperfection.
“I have now learned not to be afraid of ‘pioneering’ things. I now know it’s going to suck sometimes,” she says with a laugh. “There are doors that are open for you and things that go great…and things that don’t.”
3. Look for roles at multinational companies.
“There’s a lot of infrastructure in place if you take a formal position abroad,” Janeen points out. Through her prior roles at General Electric, for instance, she’s worked worked in India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Ghana, and Saudi Arabia.
“You can also do it on your own and figure it out as you go,” she adds. “It’s just a more difficult route.”
4. Understand that working abroad means living abroad.
“I lived in Ghana and I led teams across Sub-Saharan Africa. It’s very different—everything from hitting the light switch and wondering if the lights will go on to living in an adjudicated society where poverty is the norm,” she says.
5. Accept that these experiences will change you.
“You have to be willing to reconsider your approach to everything [when you live in a different culture,” Janeen explains. “You also learn new foods and new ways to think and solve problems, and it changes your [capacity for] patience.”
“These experiences get you to a place where you are a completely different person, and your perspective changes,” she says. “The value that you place on women’s ideas changes dramatically when you realize that they are ignored in some parts of the world.”
