International Women: From Raising Third Culture Kids to Crossing Cultures in the Boardroom
Dr. Joy Wiggins
Meet Dr. Joy Wiggins, she is a cultural agility expert, former professor, and single mum who packed up her life in Texas and moved to Lisbon, Portugal with her teenage daughter Ruby. She's spent decades living and working across cultures, from Germany to China to Jordan, she also now helps globally mobile women build careers and lives that don't fit neatly inside one country's borders.
What You'll Take Away:
- 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, Joy shows us that when you take it one "next best step" at a time, and you keep the conversation honest with your kid, 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 in a new culture is to stop talking, watch who speaks, and learn the unwritten rules before you try to rewrite them
- The women who thrive globally aren't 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
Connect with Dr. Joy Wiggins: 🌐 joywiggins.com 💼 LinkedIn: @DrJoyWiggins
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