JSI Staff Appreciate WomenLift Health’s Leadership Journey

From left: Heather Marlow, Kate Onyejekwe, and Christina Wakefield. Photos by: Heather Elizabeth Photography

Earlier this year, three JSI leaders—Heather Marlow, Kate Onyejekwe, and Christina Wakefield—started the WomenLift Health Leadership Journey. This selective, yearlong program is a unique opportunity for mid-career women working in global health to enhance their leadership skills, develop lasting relationships, and conduct independent research for a capstone leadership project.

All three women called the program a transformative experience. “I highly recommend it,” said Wakefield, adding that the program has been “extremely powerful in a way I did not fully expect.”

Onyejekwe said that “the way the program is organized is just amazing.” She highlighted the coaching, mentoring, and sense of community it provides. “There’s nothing like a community of women going through the same leadership challenges, women you know you can call on.”

For Marlow, the program has been “incredibly insightful and invigorating. It allows us to dig deep into what it means to be a leader, the challenges that women leaders face, and ways to strengthen our capabilities.” She noted that it is “not just about yourself, but about uplifting other women as well.”

All Leadership Journey participants develop a leadership project. “It has to be on something you’re passionate about,” said Onyejekwe. Building on the work of a colleague who participated in the WomenLift 2022 cohort, her project focuses on realizing JSI’s commitments to equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging. “Representation matters,” she said. “It signals equal consideration, and diverse leadership teams lead to more successful organizations. But representation is not enough.”

Onyejekwe noted evidence that minoritized leaders like women, and especially Black women, struggle with so-called imposter syndrome and “need to be supported to succeed.” In this context, she is exploring “how organizations can ensure that the voices we seek to amplify feel the sense of belonging they need to thrive as leaders.” She will also document the support women need and receive to transition to leadership.

For her project, Marlow is examining the role of gender in public health. “Gender is misunderstood in global health, and gender inequity is rife in global health organizations,” she said. “Few organizations have defined what they mean by gender and, too often, they default to binary categories instead of including all gender identities, such as transgender and genderqueer.” She will examine how various global health organizations define gender, whether they integrate different gender identities into their programming, and how gender identity and sexual orientation intersect.

Wakefield will explore opportunities to strengthen partnerships between private investors and traditional project funders on reproductive health initiatives. “An extraordinary opportunity is emerging to advance innovation in global health through impact investing,” she said. “Funds that invest in women’s health are expanding into new areas and developing new markets. However, funders and private investors operate in different spaces and at very different speeds, limiting their ability to collaborate.” Wakefield will focus on strengthening public-private partnerships that increase women’s and adolescent girls’ access to equitable reproductive health services.

Women represent approximately 70 percent of the global health workforce, but they hold only about 25 percent of leadership positions. The Leadership Journey is part of WomenLift Health’s efforts to expand women’s power and influence in global health and promote gender equality in leadership. Marlow, Onyejekwe, and Wakefield are all part of the 2024 North American cohort.