By Caroline Hopkins, Schieffer Associates 2024
Elizabeth Jenswold ’89
Elizabeth Jenswold ’89 earned a bachelor’s degree in communication studies and is known for her dedication to her profession and giving back to the community. Jenswold serves on the Schieffer College Board of Visitors, giving her insight on the institution that paved the way for her career.
Throughout her career with roles at Mary Kay, JP Morgan Chase, Toyota, and the Jane Goodall Foundation, she has embodied the spirit of giving back. She also founded her own company, Body Sisters, and sits on numerous boards, showing her commitment to leadership and service.
What did your career path look like after graduation?
When I graduated, I knew I wanted to go into a career in Human Resources. I felt like that would be a really great blend with my communication degree but also the human relations minor, which was very much about group dynamics. At the time, the communications degree was about all different levels of communication: everything from interpersonal to public speaking. I felt like having that mix of the human relations, human dynamics and the communications piece would bend really nicely.
I went to work for Mary Kay Cosmetics in Dallas, who has arguably one of the best human resources teams in the U.S. Mary Kay had a huge focus on people and her whole entire dream for having this company was about building dreams for women. For me as a young women, it was so many things that were incredible. I got to go into HR; I got to work for Mary Kay; and I got to work for a company that was purpose driven. I didn’t realize until later in my career how important that was going to be to me.”
It started my belief that work has to be about something more than just a paycheck.
How did TCU prepare you for your career?
The course work that I had around communications and human dynamics has played out in every single job I have ever had. In every single thing, wether I am in a meeting, making decisions, or I am communicating to wide audiences has really been something that has flourished for me in my career.
In my last job at JP Morgan Chase, I was in front of four to six-thousand employees a week really trying to create a tone where people felt that they had an advocate and a champion for them.
Also socially at TCU, having an opportunity where I get to interact with so many different kinds of people and figuring out how to create a relationship with a professor or somebody at the Recreational Center, or even in the groups that you participate in like sports teams, sororities and more.
Being a part of something that is not your family and learning how to interact and communicate with people was extremely helpful.
The third thing was around the idea of organization, time management, how do you take all of those skills and bring that into a work environment really helped me too.
Did you know what you wanted to do when you came to TCU? How did you decide?
I really didn’t know about human resources and I thought that I wanted to do something in public relations. I felt that communications would be a really great degree for that but as I was at TCU and did a couple internships, I learned what human resources was.
I found what I wanted to do at TCU.
What’s one piece of advice you have for current students?
Go for whatever your passion is. What do you love the most? You will be offered a lot of things. Don’t go for title, don’t go for money. I make career choices based off of values and then everything else comes: the titles come, the money comes.
I really think going first with where is your heart is so much more important than anything else you can decide with what you are going to do with the rest of your life because you spend a lot of time at work and you want to do something that really speaks to you and makes you feel like it is worth your time and attention.
Has TCU helped you in your career after you left?
Of course, TCU has given me a great network. You will find that with TCU, it gives you a great opportunity to stay in touch with the school. You will find TCU alumni in every single city that you go to. It expands your network.
Taking advantage of the network will really help you with your career because TCU is a very credible school where you come in with this great degree already.
People think that students coming in from TCU as being very well rounded, happy individuals that are going to dig in and do their very best. You will get out of that network what you put in to the network.