International Women: From Raising Kids to Crossing Cultures in the Boardroom

A Nomadic Diaries conversation with Dr. Joy Wiggins | International Women’s Day 2026

What does it really take to reinvent your career, raise a teenager abroad, and navigate entirely new cultures — all at the same time? Most of us would need to sit down just thinking about it. Dr. Joy Wiggins does it on a Tuesday.

In this special International Women’s Day episode of Nomadic Diaries, I sat down with Joy in Lisbon — while I was, as always, in my beloved San Miguel de Allende — for one of the most wide-ranging conversations I’ve had on this podcast. We talked about moving countries as a single mum with a 15-year-old, the hidden skill of cultural agility, and why the most strategic women aren’t always the loudest ones in the room.

From ‘Just Get on the Plane, Joy’ to Lisbon with Ruby

Joy’s story begins the way so many great intercultural lives do — with a military dad who one day announced the family was moving to Germany. Joy was the youngest. Nobody asked her opinion. “Just get on the plane, Joy.” And so she did.

That move — living in a German village rather than on the base, learning the language, playing with local kids — opened what Joy calls a “cultural aperture” that never closed again. It took her to China in the year 2000 (a sign that said ‘Teach in China’ and no teaching jobs in Washington State — sometimes the universe is very clear), through a doctorate, a 20-year career in academia, corporate DEI work, and eventually, to Lisbon with her daughter Ruby in tow.

Moving with a 13-year-old is not for the faint-hearted. There was a boyfriend. There were friends. There was a neurodivergent child who needed the right school — not just any school. Joy tried a British curriculum international school (too rigid), online American curriculum (too unstructured), and is now stepping into a teaching role at an IB school in Lisbon. International Baccalaureate — inquiry-based, project-led, cross-disciplinary — which Joy describes as exactly the kind of education that develops genuine global citizens. Ruby remains unconvinced, largely thanks to TikTok.

What Cultural Agility Actually Means

Joy makes an important distinction that I think every expat, global nomad, and intercultural professional needs to hear: there’s a significant difference between being culturally ‘competent’ and culturally ‘agile.’

Cultural competence, as Joy describes it, is going along to get along. You learn a few customs, you avoid a few faux pas, and you manage. Cultural agility is something deeper — it’s the ability to pause, read a room, and ask yourself: who is in this space, what are they bringing, and what am I bringing? It’s knowing yourself well enough that you can walk into any room, anywhere in the world, and understand what’s really happening beneath the surface.

If this resonates, you might also enjoy my conversation with Daniela Dreugalis on The Cultural Chameleon: Curiosity, Humility, and the Art of Belonging Abroad — another deep dive into what it truly means to adapt across cultures, not just survive them.

The Blind Spots Western Women Carry Abroad

Joy spent two weeks in Amman, Jordan, immersed in a leadership programme that completely dismantled what she thought she knew about women’s lives in the Arab world. Every assumption she’d carried — from her own feminist lens, shaped by Western media — was upended when she sat with rural political leaders, historians, artists, and activists who were making quiet, powerful change in their communities.

I found this deeply resonant. In my own book, Life in the Camel Lane, I write about exactly this — the gap between what outsiders assume about life in Saudi Arabia and the rich, complex reality of the women I lived alongside for fifteen years. You cannot companion people at a distance. You have to be there.

Joy’s biggest caution for Western women entering cross-cultural spaces? Don’t mistake confidence for competence. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do in a new culture is stop talking, watch who speaks, listen to the unwritten rules, and learn how power actually moves through a room before you try to rearrange it.

Strategy, Solidarity, and the Boardroom

One of the things I loved most about this conversation was how Joy brought it back to something so practical: strategy. Not hustle. Not loudness. Strategy.

She co-authored a book about how women unintentionally sabotage each other in professional settings — not out of malice, but because of the structures we’re in. Her answer? Get strategic together. Know when to open a door quietly. Know when to pass information rather than make a scene. Know that solidarity isn’t always a battle cry — sometimes it’s a private conversation and a question: how can I best support you?

This thread — of building genuine connection and support across difference — runs through so many of our conversations on Nomadic Diaries. Melissa Hahn explored it beautifully in Forging Bonds Abroad, and Kathy Ellis brought her own deeply thoughtful perspective in Bridging Hearts and Minds. These conversations sit alongside each other beautifully — different women, different contexts, the same enduring question: how do we truly connect across the divides?

What You’ll Take Away From This Episode

•       There’s a world of difference between being culturally competent and culturally agile — one is going along to get along, the other is knowing yourself well enough to walk into any room, anywhere in the world, and read what’s really happening beneath the surface.

•       Moving abroad as a single mum with a teenager is not for the faint-hearted — but when you take it one ‘next best step’ at a time, and keep the conversation honest with your child, the adventure is absolutely worth the wobble.

•       The biggest blind spot Western women carry into cross-cultural spaces is mistaking their own confidence for competence — sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is stop talking, watch who speaks, and learn the unwritten rules before you try to rewrite them.

•       The women who thrive globally aren’t always the ones who hustle hardest — they’re the ones who get strategic, build real solidarity with other women, and understand that sometimes opening a door just a crack is how you eventually walk through it fully.

About Dr. Joy Wiggins

Dr. Joy Wiggins is a cultural agility expert, former university professor, and DEI researcher now based in Lisbon, Portugal. She is the founder of Joy Abroad, offering expat coaching and career strategy for globally mobile women, and she hosts Airbnb experiences in Lisbon where — as she laughingly admits — people keep asking her for career advice when they came for pastéis de nata. She also publishes Dr. Joy’s Cultural Agility Corner, a newsletter covering EU pay transparency, policies protecting women in the workplace, and cross-cultural leadership insights.

Website: joywiggins.com

LinkedIn: @DrJoyWiggins

If this episode stirred something in you — whether you’re mid-move, mid-career, or mid-life wondering what’s next — share it with a woman who needs to hear it today. And if you haven’t already, subscribe to Nomadic Diaries wherever you listen. Your story belongs here. 🌺