The more I saw, the more I wanted

I joined Marriott* as a cashier in 1983, 41 years ago! It was a job which worked well with my home life as I could commute with my husband, who was working as a chef for Marriott at the time. I worked my way up to supervisor then assistant manager.

My husband was the main breadwinner, I needed to be close to home to coordinate childcare, but I was still able to grow professionally. I got my first management job when I came back from maternity leave after having my first child.

As a working mom, you can sometimes feel like you don’t have all the tools in your toolkit to get the job you want. But I was gathering those tools without even realizing it. I had a lot of great mentors in my managers, and I had the inner drive too!

After a few years I was promoted and took on my first multi-site role for a client within the technology industry. I stayed in this role for 18 years; it sounds like a long time to be in the same role, but it didn’t feel like the same role to me. I was always growing and building on my skills with a huge variety of projects including starting a taskforce for people with disabilities and running mentorship programs.

I was the only woman amongst my peers at the time. But I felt like I could just be myself and it didn’t matter. I brought a mutual respect to my team and really focused on building my network and my team.

I’m most proud of my professional progress during this time. It was a great role to help me take the step from unit manager to district manager. I had always thought I might end up working in human resources because I love to develop people, but I realized I would be able to help more people working in operations. 

I love creative problem solving

In 2004 I was promoted to my current role of district manager. The adjustment from having one client to having many clients, each with different contracts and expectations, was a big one.

I found the second year as a district manager is the hardest. I lost my first contract in a re-bid process. We did our job, but I took it incredibly personally. For me the relationship with the client is incredibly personal and I work really hard to maintain those relationships.

I’m now responsible for managing 250 employees, 33 managers and have 14 direct reports. This team delivers the very best food, hospitality and soft services to our clients across 17 contracts and 25 buildings in the New York metropolitan area.

I like to keep my feet on the ground, close to operations. In big companies it’s easier to change things if you come forward with both a problem and a solution and I’m proud of my ability to do this. I love to throw crazy ideas on the wall and be creative offering solutions.

I love to share this quote from Andrea in my team. It’s ok to do something if that’s what our client wants, but is there a way we could offer an even better solution? 

A great example of this was the Covid-19 pandemic. Leading a team through Covid was difficult. In our area 800 people were dying a day. When the world was shutting down, we still needed to feed people, help them feel safe and help our clients run their business. We found ways to show up every day with courage, resilience, empathy and ideas on how we could share best practice and find solutions together.

As if that was not enough, our world was rocked 16 months later when my husband suffered a traumatic brain injury which resulted in Global Aphasia and right-side weakness. I became the head of household, basically single mom and 100% caregiver. Once again, the Sodexo team rallied around our family. Everyone at Sodexo is super supportive of my needs as a caregiver. I am able to care for my husband and attend caregiver support groups for myself. I am able to be everyone I need to be. Sodexo is my family.

I’m even able to support the Adler Aphasia Center which my husband attends each week through fundraising and awareness. My husband and I were recognized for this support with The Shining STAR award from the center earlier this year. 

Four members of my family have spent time working for Sodexo, my husband, one of my sons, my daughter-in-law and my brother. Together we’ve racked up 92 years of service. 

My amazingly diverse team:

One of the things I love about my role is being able to pick a team which is not like me. An incredibly diverse team brings many different points of view, adding so much value.

I’m really driven by making a difference, helping my team to grow in their career and ensuring everyone in my clients’ building has the best experience ever. I always say in sales bids, all companies deliver the same services really, it’s the people who deliver the services who make the difference. 

I am excited to continue to share my story of courage, resilience, leadership and opportunity to inspire the next generation of Sodexo leaders. My job allows me to color outside the lines professionally as well as in my personal life.

Find out more about a career with Sodexo!



*Sodexo merged with Marriott International in 1997. Joanne and her husband started working for Marriott which later became part of Sodexo.