Choose to Challenge & Inspire: Gender Norms

Josye Santiago’s career began a decade ago at Jabil’s Brazil operations, where she built the foundation for a successful career and challenged stereotypes along the way, paving a more inclusive path for the next generation. 

About four years ago, Josye was offered a promotion that would take her work to a regional level and would also uproot her home. 

In the culture she was raised in, it’s not typical for a woman to move her immediate family to a new country, leaving behind friends, family and most importantly, her parents. For Josye, however, she chose to challenge this in pursuit of a proud career. “I’ve shown that even in a macho culture, ‘yes!’ a female can be a senior leader with a successful career and wonderful family life,” she says. 

The decision to move to Guadalajara, Mexico, opened doors for Josye, who is now a Senior Materials Manager for Jabil’s entire Latin America operations, covering the work of inventory, purchasing, planning and logistics teams. 

And she isn’t stopping with progressing just her own career growth; Josye is also inspiring young women at the sites she works in to take chances, be resilient, and learn from mistakes. She is an authentic leader who shares that “Emotional Intelligence is one of the key skills to invest in for yourself. I am human, and life is hard sometimes. But life – and decisions like moving my three children, husband and myself to a new country – may be hard, but it’s up to us to make the decision to go for it,” she said. “And sometimes I make mistakes, but I talk about them with young women I work with to show them that no one is perfect. It’s real life, and life is about evolving.”  

With 20 managers reporting to and respecting her, all of whom are men, Josye strives to demonstrate how together, men and women can build an inclusive culture. 

Beyond the substantial work she has done to support our supply chain organization in Latin America and her dedication to never miss a school event for her children, which “people are surprised when I say that because they just see me as a workaholic,” Josye has also started an outreach group with her teams to donate, volunteer and help those less fortunate throughout Brazil and Mexico. 

Josye has chosen to challenge (#ChooseToChallenge) and support an equal path forward.