MILWAUKEE — Most of the Milwaukee Business Journal's Women of Influence are front and center, but there are some who influence from behind the scenes. Dr. C. Greer Jordan is one of them as the Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer for the Medical College of Wisconsin.
"I want to help the Medical College of Wisconsin be adaptive and responsive to the rapidly changing environment of higher education and healthcare," said Jordan.
Dr. Jordan believes adapting begins with embracing diversity. She thinks that can only strengthen an organization.
"I believe that, by building the capacity of our leaders to be inclusive leaders, and be able to convert our diversity into a positive force, we're going to actually build that flexibility and adaptability, to be able to solve these unique problems that are coming our way that we don't even know what the problems are yet," said Jordan.
She developed a tactic for when problems do come up. She said she learned early on the power of stepping back and observing.
"Coming up through Detroit public schools, where one wrong move could end up in a conflict. One didn't want to get into - I think, I developed that capability early on," said Jordan.
For her impact, the Milwaukee Business Journal has named Dr. Jordan a member of this year's Women of Influence.
She credits much of her success to relationships like the one she built with her sponsor, Dr. Deborah Plummer.
Another influencing force is her mother.
"I remember, she was only six credit hours shy of getting her master's degree. And she stopped because of her parenting responsibilities, and I don't forget that. I'm grateful," said Jordan. "And when I completed my masters and I completed my PhD, I really dedicated them to her."
An interesting fact: before working in organizational diversity and inclusion, Dr. Jordan was an engineer for Ford Motor Company.
