Refusing to serve, choosing to lead: Dr Cassida Jones Johnson, a beacon for women in leadership

GROWING up as a young woman entering the male-dominated corporate world, Dr Cassida Jones Johnson faced many challenges both in England and in Jamaica. However, nothing prepared her for the moment when a senior male colleague expected her to pour coffee simply because she was the only woman in the room. What followed was not just a defiant refusal, but a catalyst for change, a defining moment that she said reshaped workplace culture at one of Jamaica’s largest corporations.

Dr Jones Johnson, who is now the president of the Human Resource Management Association of Jamaica (HRMAJ), started her local journey in HR at the GraceKennedy Group of Companies back in 1997 and recalls the moment vividly.

“I remember going to one of the management meetings and the lady with the coffee came and she put the tray and everything in the middle of the table and all the men and myself sat there and one of the guys who was trying to bully me said, ‘Cassida, do the honours now’ and that’s when the world changed at GraceKennedy, when I realised that they expect a female, because she’s there, to get up and serve them.”

At the time, Dr Jones Johnson had recently joined GraceKennedy, transitioning from a banking career in England where she worked at Citibank London. She expressed her determination to break barriers, but quickly learned that gender expectations in the workplace were deeply ingrained.

“I noticed that we barely had any women who were sales managers or sales people. We didn’t have anybody as merchandisers packing the shelves and stuff at the supermarket and we needed to change that so that everybody understands that it’s a level playing field and that’s when the transition started at GraceKennedy,” she explained.

However, she said her efforts to promote change were faced with resistance.

“There were one or two senior male managers who were bullies, but I didn’t allow it to stop me from doing what I needed to do. So asking me to serve the coffee, sending me e-mails in all caps and in red to say that I must not speak to anyone in their department, and there was a lot of other stuff, but it didn’t stop me,” she said.

Despite the push-back, Dr Jones Johnson said she made sure to immerse herself into the culture by attending management meetings even when she was not wanted there and used those meetings as an opportunity to learn more about the business.

According to her, the persistence paid off.

While spending over 20 years at GraceKennedy, she said that her influence helped to transform the company’s approach to leadership, ensuring that women were given opportunities to rise through the ranks.

“I tried to make sure that women were pushed into management positions and they were seen as equal by merit, not because they’re a woman, but by merit, and if you look at the GraceKennedy group now, you’ll see a lot of women in leadership roles [and] that wasn’t the case 20 or so years ago,” she said.

Her experience at GraceKennedy mirrored the struggles she faced in the earlier stages of her life. Growing up in North-West London, she recalled getting bullied because of the colour of her skin, but she said this did not stop her from enjoying her childhood.

She left England to continue her high school education in Jamaica, noting that it was a better opportunity for her to reach her full academic potential as she attended both The Queen’s School and Immaculate Conception High School.

“I came to Jamaica because when I started high school in England, they put me in a stream called ‘The athletic stream’ because of my height. I could do high jump and stuff and they weren’t focused on academics for me and my dad is an academic because he was an engineer so he told my mom that she needed to take me to Jamaica for me to do high school here,” she said.

When she returned to England to work and pursue tertiary education, she also noted that things were a little different.

“I found that I got jobs because of the need to have someone to say that we have an equal opportunity company,” she acknowledged.

Around age 21, she worked for British Airways as a flight attendant before she decided she wanted to attend university, but she wanted to pay for it herself.

Therefore, she took a temporary job at Citibank London.

She said that after six months on the job, she informed her employer that she was leaving to pursue her education. Initially surprised, they questioned her decision, but a week later, they offered her a permanent position and even proposed to cover her tuition. When she asked why, they told her it was because she carried herself with the presence of an executive.

Even though she was initially hired as part of a diversity initiative, she seized the opportunity to prove that her value extended far beyond meeting a quota.

“Although I was very young, they wanted to groom me, and it would go back to what I would say to any young person, even when I was on the train I made sure I looked like I was a manager, even though I wasn’t, and that’s what attracted them to me and that’s why they wanted to groom me into management,” she said.

“I bought five suits, the only suits I had. I had a lot of scarves to let it look different and I had a briefcase that had sandwiches and a newspaper in there. It didn’t have no executive paper or anything like that and I looked like a manager on the train going to work,” Dr Jones Johnson added.

After completing her studies in England, gaining a degree in Law and Labour Studies, a PhD In Human Behaviour and a Master’s in Human Resource Development, she returned to Jamaica and when she stepped into the role of HR, she noted that despite her lack of experience at the start, England prepared her for the challenges she would face.

“I think England prepared me for coming back to Jamaica. Although it was more like a racial thing in England, here was more of a gender thing. People thought I’d last three months at GraceKennedy because of the environment at the time and the bullying. But as I said, England prepared me to deal with the people here in Jamaica so I didn’t go anywhere,” she asserted.

Now, as a leader in HR, she continues to advocate for workplace equity.

Expressing concerns about Jamaica’s progress in this department, she believes that more can and should be done to make a more equitable working environment while improving productivity in many offices.

“There is something called an employer assistance programme that was introduced about 15 or 20 years ago in some of the workplaces in Jamaica. Has it gone far enough? No, absolutely not, especially for the females,” she said.

Dr Jones Johnson pointed out that in other countries employer assistance programmes extend beyond maternity leave to include support for menopause and other life transitions.

However, she noted that Jamaica has yet to implement such initiatives.

She also highlighted the lack of structured support for employees navigating personal challenges, such as divorce or single parenthood, whether as a mother or father.

Despite the challenges, she urges young professionals, particularly women, to focus on excelling in the small but meaningful aspects of their work. She stresses that success doesn’t require aggression, especially for women entering the workforce. Instead, she advises paying attention to the finer details, beginning with one’s professional presence.

“Start with your visual résumé , we tend to start with the paper résumé but start with your visual résumé and it doesn’t mean that you have to be pretty and it doesn’t mean that you have to have on a lot of hair and a lot of make-up, you don’t need to do that. It’s really about how you carry yourself…it takes eight seconds for someone to make an impression of you, so what will someone say when they see you in eight seconds when you walk through a room?” she said.