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News Jun 19, 2019

Empowering Women, Engaging Men: Spotlight on Jacobs’ 2019 Global Women’s Network Summit

What do you get when you gather over 120 global leaders passionate about gender equality in a room for two days? Passion, problem solving, lesson sharing, collaboration and most importantly progress!

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More than 120 female leaders and male allies from across the world recently attended the Jacobs Women's Network (JWN) Global Summit in Dallas, Texas, home of our headquarters. Over three action-packed days attendees met with Jacobs executive leadership and industry-leading women from other businesses to share success stories and challenges, learn from current trends and ultimately drive to advance female inclusion and empowerment in Jacobs and beyond.

Held from June 6-8, the theme of this year’s summit was “Empowering Women, Engaging Men”, recognizing the importance of engaging with male allies to create a workplace where women can feel empowered, can thrive and take on executive leadership positions. The agenda highlighted how gender equality is a critical component of our strategy, with its influence on innovation, sustainability, diversity and inclusive leadership and culture.

Jacobs Women's Network - 2019 Global Summit
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A highlight of the event? A facilitated discussion with three industry-leading female panelists – Tracey Doi (CFO, Toyota Motor North America), Arcilia Acosta (President & CEO, CARCON Industries and STL Engineers) and Matrice Ellis-Kirk (Managing Director of RSR Partners) – who stressed the importance of authentic leadership, accepting challenges, overcoming “impostor syndrome” and giving back to the next generation in their careers.

Attendees also heard from Dr. Dnika J. Travis from Catalyst, a global nonprofit working with Jacobs and some of the world’s largest companies to build workplaces that work for women, remove barriers and drive change. Dnika addressed the important theme of intersectionality and how different aspects of social and political discrimination overlap with gender and are therefore vital to creating a truly inclusive workplace.

These presentations were complemented by a series of breakouts, Q&A sessions and open forums providing a space where people could share success stories, challenges and lessons learned.

The Jacobs Women’s Network plays a vital role in driving inclusion across Jacobs. An employee-led and employee-organized group with 5,000+ members and 124 chapters across 26 countries, JWN is accelerating a cultural shift by empowering women and promoting gender equality. The network works closely with our executive and senior leadership as a liaison to our membership to share the voice of the employee experience.

JWN Global Summit attendees departed Dallas energized and empowered to drive positive change that extends to the people and places we influence, everywhere and every day – delivering the promise of more.