Meet Jonni Redick: CEO, JLConsulting Solutions

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jonni Redick and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jonni, can you tell us more about your background and the role it’s played in shaping who you are today?
Our sense of belonging and value originates early in our lives and it takes us so long to feel that we are worthy of love and good things for ourselves. As I reflected on that little girl who use to play and laugh, and yet already felt ashamed that she was so, so different. Chubby with short wild hair. Desperately wanting to be someone else, anyone else than who she was in those early years and the many years that followed.

I was born in Burbank, California and lived most of my life off and on in California. There were periods of my childhood up until the age of 13 years old when I would live in a different city or state several times in a school year.
Raised by a single mother as a biracial child, not having a relationship with my father, we were often struggling financially as I struggled to fit in.

Although my mother was a registered nurse, she was out of work intermittently and we would become transient living with family, friends, or in shelters. During the times we were floating, but anchored, I would watch her at work overseeing other nurses, caring for patients, and demonstrating her heart for service. It was only natural that I would gravitate to a service profession. Although law enforcement is a nontraditional career for a woman, my mother was always my champion.

My life, while messy, has become my message. My passionate purpose in life for creating resilience in leaders underpinned by the value of service to others holistically and selflessly.

What should our readers know about your business?
I’m proud of surviving a 29-year career in policing and thriving in my next season. My progression from front line police work to executive leadership in a large state agency serving the entire state of California generated my passion for building resilient leaders and empowering women to rise within the ranks.

There were many experiences of growth through miscues and mistakes, tragedy, and trauma, refining my resilience and endurance to strive for my best self along the way. When I retired with the California Highway Patrol (CHP), there was something in my spirit stirring, calling me. It had been there for several years but the pressure of performing in my executive leadership role in policing allowed no time to explore it.

In that first year of retirement, taking the advice I’d given to so many but couldn’t find the time to do while working, I finished my master’s degree at University of San Diego (USD) in Law Enforcement and Public Safety Leadership (LEPSL). After I graduated, USD offered me a job to adjunct teach for the program, so I accepted. In my experience going through the program, there wasn’t a balanced reflection of myself as a woman, a woman of color on the faculty, and actually, it was predominately all white men, a reflection of the law enforcement profession nationally. This is not a slight on white males, as it can be taken out of context. It is a call to be intentional with providing a well-rounded faculty to enhance learning outcomes from all ‘lived’ experience perspectives to create richer instruction. The reality is the profession serves communities in a myriad of cultures; leaders need to have that understanding. My influence there, and at the local college where I teach leadership, ethics, and professionalism, has given me the ability to be an influential thought leader toward enhancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in public safety, law enforcement and corporate culture.

These couple of years after retirement allowed me to heal, restore, renew, and recalibrate what I wanted to do in this new next season of my life. When I got out of my own way, I took a step of faith and started my leadership coaching and consulting business, JLConsulting Solutions. Feeling free to truly harness the stirring I’d been having of doing more to build leadership, build better people who influence our society.

Lessons Learned:
• Leadership is the ability to balance competing priorities while discovering your resilience.
• Learning to know your own value and demand it from others.
• Understanding that just because you might have been good at the career you were in for decades does not automatically translate into a business mindset.
• Being opened to being a continual learner, learning takes intentional consistency.
• Be vulnerable enough to see your blind spots and fix them!
• Don’t be afraid of your greatness, if used properly, it will be needed by many.

Brand, Story:

Remembering our entire life is one continuous amalgamation and we have the choice to do something with our gifts, talents, time that can build up or tear down. I’m so grateful I’ve been able to find ways to build and keep building. I also have a forthcoming book, Black, White & Blue: Surviving the Sifting, which is about empowering women to rise while enduring as I share my experience behind the badge, pressing forward toward success unarmored and being unapologetic in that sifting process.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
My best friend lives on the east coast, which is a chilly 28 degrees in March. Seeing how California has the most beautiful beaches and peaceful scenery, we would start with spending time with our feet in the sand, feeling the ocean breeze and listening to the distant sounds of seagulls as they fly about. Sometimes we can take the still, quiet and tranquil moments for granted and want to rush to the busyness of life’s “tour” when we travel. Often, relaxing is the essence of finding joy through those priceless experiences which allows you to be refreshed, renewed and reset so you can enjoy the remaining time you have to explore the delightful cuisine from local restaurants and diners like Johnny Pastrami, Philippes, Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles and then take in the sights. I’m low maintenance, most of my friends are as well, perhaps that’s why we’ve been friends for over three decades!Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I’d like to give a shoutout to my forthcoming book, Black, White & Blue: Surviving the Sifting due out this Spring 2021. The book is my memoir and story of all those champions and heroes of my life’s journey as I navigated my leadership ascension through the ranks of policing, my childhood and adulthood.

Within my story, it’s about empowering women to rise while enduring as I share the pain of my human experience behind the badge, pressing forward toward success unarmored and being unapologetic in that sifting process. The struggle is tied to my surrender and the heroines in my life like my mother who was broken, battered and beaten but persevered.

Website: www.jlconsultingsolutions.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jlconsultingsolutions

Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/jonni-redick-fenner-a0016a29

Twitter: https://twitter.com/jonniredick

Image Credits
Photo by Joe McHugh Photography