Jana Pollard, MBA, CPIM

I attribute my success to curiosity, resilience, and a strong commitment to people centered leadership. Over the past 21 years, I’ve grown from an engineer to a regional operations leader by embracing challenges, building high performing teams, and driving measurable improvements in safety, efficiency, and capacity. I co authored Unlocking Your Leadership and launched my own consulting business to help organizations solve complex problems and operate more effectively. As I continue to expand this work, I’m focused on creating opportunities, especially for emerging and underrepresented talent, while fostering innovation, accountability, and sustainable growth.

The best career advice I’ve ever received has come from my aunt, Annette Dalmo, whose consistent encouragement and belief in the power of education have had a lasting impact on me. Every Friday, she shares “Auntie’s Words of Wisdom,” thoughtful messages often paired with Black History facts that inspire, uplift, and remind us to keep pushing forward. While her advice is sometimes simple, like keeping your head up during challenging times, it always resonates deeply. Her dedication to empowering others and helping them strive to be their best selves has shaped my mindset and continues to influence how I approach both my career and my life.

I would share to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. I think that there's a lot of opportunity out there that we're afraid to explore because it's making us uncomfortable, but sometimes continuing to persevere and take on that challenge opens up newer opportunities, because it puts us in the front, front-facing. We network, we get to know people, people see us, we're more visible. That has been kind of my model for the last couple of years, and it's worked out really great.

One of the biggest challenges in my field right now is navigating rapid transformation while maintaining strong, people-centered leadership. As manufacturing and operations continue to evolve with new technologies, global pressures, and shifting workforce expectations, organizations must balance efficiency and innovation with culture, safety, and talent development. At the same time, this presents a powerful opportunity to reimagine how we lead, create more inclusive pathways for emerging and underrepresented professionals, and foster environments where creativity and engineering talent can truly thrive. I’m especially inspired by the chance to mentor the next generation, expand access to meaningful opportunities, and continue building teams that are not only high performing, but also purpose driven and resilient as they shape the future of the industry.

Advocating for women is incredibly important to me. I think the biggest thing for me is really advocating for women. There was a site I worked at in Cleveland, Ohio where we needed to expand, and I went to the business president and asked to go back as plant manager to tackle the challenges. When I found out that some of our women at the site were being threatened with write-ups for refusing to transfer to a new training site, I dug deeper instead of just accepting it as insubordination. After talking to them, I realized they were afraid to drive on the highway to get to the other site. I went back to the male supervisors and said we're not writing them up - we're actually going to provide transportation for them to the other site. I said spending 50 dollars a day is worth it, and they were appreciative of what we were doing for them. We were able to get the training done in a more efficient and accelerated fashion. They were crying because they were afraid of getting on that highway, and we found a solution that worked for everyone.