Who is Jennifer M. Joseph?

The short version...

I am a proud daughter of immigrants and a woman who took the lemons that life threw at me and made lemonade! I use my life story and the lessons that I have learned to help others reach their full potential.

Here's the longer version...

I grew up in a loving home, ​but I really struggled with my identity.

We all know how hard it is to find ourselves and to pinpoint our life's purpose while navigating a world that is filled with a million stereotypes. As a daughter of immigrants, I often found myself torn between two worlds--ultimately feeling like I belonged in neither of them. I was born and raised in the west side of Philadelphia, PA and grew up with two loving, God-fearing, and hardworking parents who though they didn't have much, worked extremely hard to ensure that my brother and I lacked nothing. My father taught me to be extremely confident and my mother taught me to love me for me. I saw strength and resilience in my home, at my church, and through the people that my parents surrounded us with. When I started school, however, I was faced with the reality that by default of my skin color and by my socioeconomic status, that I would be impacted by deplorable systems and social constructs that would shake my confidence for the rest of my life. My parents could not afford a private school education nor could they afford a home in a "good school district" so my brother and I attended our neighborhood schools. Everyday I would leave a home filled with love and that made me feel confident only to attend schools where it was obvious that society didn't care about black and brown youth. Add being a woman on top of being black and well, enough said!

Fast forward a few years....

Determined to turn my life around, I both attended and graduated college. I later co-founded a fast-growing local program to empower black and brown youth. That youth program jump started my career in organizational leadership and sparked my interest in Human Resources Management. After many years of hard work and of dedicated service to my community, I continued to climb the ladder--breaking barriers for women who look like me. Today, at the age 30, I am a mother and a wife, the Deputy Director and Chief DEI Officer at HIAS PA, an Author, and the Executive Director of Bloom Circle. Community service is my love language!