Janeen Uzzell
Janeen Uzzell is the Chief Executive Officer at the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), a newly created position for the organization.
NSBE was founded by six African-American engineering undergraduates and their faculty advisor at Purdue University in 1975 to raise the graduation rate of Black engineering students in the United States. Now an international organization with more than 21,000 members in the U.S., several African nations, Canada, the Caribbean region and elsewhere, NSBE pursues its mission “to increase the number of culturally responsible Black engineers who excel academically, succeed professionally and positively impact the community.”
Uzzell holds a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from North Carolina A&T State University and an MBA in international business from Fairleigh Dickinson University. A seasoned leader with more than 20 years of corporate, strategy, business development and start-up experience, she spent 16 years as an executive for GE before joining Wikimedia, the nonprofit organization that supports and hosts Wikipedia, which is among the top 10 most-used websites in the world. During her tenure with GE, she held several technical roles, served as a profit and loss leader, managed a major market customer base and became head of Women in Technology, working across the 300,000-employee community to accelerate the cultural shift to increase the number of women within the company’s technical female workforce. Previously, beginning in 2009, she spent five years as director of healthcare programs for GE Africa, based in Accra, Ghana, the role with the company she now cherishes most.
Uzzell has received numerous awards for her professional accomplishments. Beyond her professional achievements, she is a member of the board of directors for Mercy Ships and dFree, serves on the Engineering Advisory Board for her alma mater, NCA&T, and is a founding member of her former church. Uzzell is committed to social justice and believes that technology must play a critical next step in the pivotal changes for equity.
