Janeen Uzzell


Janeen Uzzell is a Global Technology Executive and Chief Operating Officer of the Wikimedia Foundation. She previously served as Director of Healthcare Programs in Africa and Head of Women in Technology for General Electric.

Early life and education

Uzzell was born in Newark, New Jersey and raised in Plainfield, New Jersey, where she attended Mount St. Mary Academy. She has cited her family as an inspiration for her education and career. Her father, Jay Uzzell, was a musician in the band The Corsairs, and her mother is Kate Uzzell. She studied mechanical engineering at North Carolina A&T State University and graduated in 1990. Uzzell earned an Master of Business Administration at Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Career

Uzzell joined General Electric in 2002, focusing on healthcare technologies. Alongside her career at GE, Uzzell volunteered on overseas short-term mission trips, supporting organisations like Doctors without borders. In particular, Uzzell volunteered with Action Chapel International in Ghana. In 2008 she joined GE on a trip to Africa, supporting midwives in using the GE ultrasound units. Uzzell started to work with local doctors, governmental and non-governmental organizations to improve women's healthcare across the continent. In 2009 Uzzell was named the Director of Global Healthcare at GE, leading their $6 billion healthymagination programme. In this capacity she supported the Millennium Development Goals, in particular, targets that looked to improve maternal and infant health in Africa and India. She worked with PATH and the Clinton Foundation as Co-Chair of the Medical Devices Task Force of Ban Ki-moon's Every Woman Every Child initiative. She moved to Accra in 2012, where she worked as Director of Healthcare Programs for GE Africa. Here she trained nurse midwives and developed rural healthcare strategy. In Tanzania, Uzzell helped to upgrade rural clinics, building solar panels to power the VScan – a pocket-sized ultrasound. Her work was recognized with the GE Icon Leadership award in 2014.
In 2016, Uzzell took over the Women in Technology programs at GE. Here she led the implementation of an ad campaign that showcased women engineers, including Mildred Dresselhaus. Under Uzzell's leadership, GE announced that it looked to reach equal representation of men and women on their technical graduate entry programs by 2020, with 20,000 women in STEM roles. She was named as one of the Network Journal's 25 Most Influential Black Women in Business.
Uzzell joined the Wikimedia Foundation in 2019, where she has been given the responsibility to develop the foundation's strategic plan, Wikimedia 2030. Alongside her work at the WMF, Uzzell serves on the Advisory Board for the International Black Women’s Public Policy Institute and the Intervarsity National Believers in Business Collegiate Organization.