It’s all about the experience. Jodi Washington knows this. She embodies this sentiment whether at work or at play. When a colleague emails her, they are met immediately with a cheeky reply: “Email is so 2020,” leading to a live link inviting the sender to “Hit me up in Teams to find me in a Flash!”
That’s just one example of her attention to communications, culture, and community. In her role as a director of operations for the flash business unit at Western Digital, she’s responsible for internal communications, internal events, and building community.
Washington first joined the company in 2021 when she was drawn to the post-COVID opportunity to re-engage employees and get them back to the office.
“When I joined Western Digital, part of the excitement about coming onboard was the challenge to determine how we were going to bring the company forward,” she said. “How do we ignite energy? How do we get people excited to be here again?”
Washington herself is energetic and she wants a workplace where she can glean, gain, and give energy to the people around her. Her lifelong love for Disneyland has become a way, a perspective of creating awesome experiences.
“Disneyland, for me, is the happiest place on earth,” she said. “When we’re heading down south for a trip, I’m going to be ‘Disneyland excited.’ When I get on the plane, I’m excited. And when I get there—it’s just this inherent thing I feel every day. I want this to translate to our work environment. We should all be excited to come to work with amazing people doing awesome work.”
From the pitch to tech
When Washington was a child, she wanted to grow up to be a children’s author because she loved stories with vivid pictures. But, as a woman of action, soccer became a big part of her life and she was certain she’d become a soccer coach, playing throughout her childhood and at the University of California, Berkeley.
“Playing soccer at the Division I level is the driving force behind who I am, how I lead, and how—at the end of the day—you remember it’s a game. You have to enjoy it,” she said.
She got into tech by chance. Her husband worked for Sun Microsystems in the late 1990s. She accompanied him to a work event and met his manager’s wife, who worked at Extreme Networks. The two women hit it off and the wife invited Washington to interview for a role on their marketing communications team.
“I’ve always worked for amazing leaders who, although they chose me, I chose through the interview process,” Washington said. “Fortunately, I haven’t had any real workplace issues along the way because the roles I’ve selected were driven by the leader first, then the work. I have never taken a role I didn’t believe I would enjoy.”
Flash forward
Washington’s passion for experiences has allowed her to drive unique events for the company’s flash business unit and events that engage employees, allowing them to get to know one another both professionally and personally.
“In our event, ‘Flash Got Talent,’ we have singers, poets, beatboxers, and banjo players,” she said. “It’s fun to watch people get outside of their everyday comfort zone and share a little bit more about who they are outside of work.”
The Flash Family Farmers’ Market this summer brings Washington’s own love for gardening into the workplace. Washington, who lives in urban San Jose, grows every vegetable her family eats. She has eight raised beds in her backyard, with a pollinator and a beehive. She was recently gifted five chickens, named after The Jackson Five, that will enable her family to enjoy fresh eggs in the city.
The Flash Family Farmers’ Market will both bring together employees and raise money for Veggielution, a nonprofit organization in San Jose whose mission is to build community through food and farming.
Employees can also take part in the Flash 5K in the fall while making an impact on the broader community through fundraising. The Flash 5K will benefit the College of Adaptive Arts and the American Cancer Society.
Employees at all levels are invited to participate. Seeing executives run alongside employees augments the culture of experiences.
“I like to get our executives out of their comfort zones and get in there with the people, compete with the people, and have fun with the people,” Washington said.
Be your authentic self
Washington has many mentors for her leadership in creating experiences, from executive assistants to chiefs of staff to mentors outside of the company.
“When I think about leading, if it’s youth soccer club or our Western Digital employees, I want to ensure everyone is comfortable sharing or approaching our leadership team for anything,” Washington said. “We are all human, working at the same company, toward the same goals, and hopefully, we can have fun doing it!”
When she thinks about the word “mentorship,” she believes there’s something you can learn just from a conversation. She keeps these tidbits in the back of her mind to see how she can apply them.
“When I think about mentors, it’s always changing. It’s always evolving,” said Washington. “I just try to learn as much as I can every day in the things I love, whether it be gardening, raising chickens, or at work.”
One thing Washington brings to work every day is her authenticity, which is central to the advice she gives other women in tech.
“Be your authentic self, because at the end of the day people should know who you are and what you stand for,” she said. “You never know when you could make an impact on someone else, so just be you.”
Washington is happy to share her authentic self at work, embracing each day like a kid at Disneyland.
