In Her Words: Jane Edmonds on Service, Storytelling, and Babson

Jane Edmonds P’19 always sees possibilities where others see limits. 

She learned that growing up from the examples set by her father, Thomas A. Center. He would start with the resources at hand, the first step in what Babson College teaches, Entrepreneurial Thought & Action^® (ET&A^™). 

“That’s the way my dad lived,” Edmonds says. “He went to the dump to get wood to try to build tables for us at home. He was practicing ET&A long before it had a name.” 

That wasn’t the only lesson she learned from her dad, who taught her the importance of helping others who needed a hand or just needed to be heard. “When I think about lifting people up,” she says, “it goes to the core of who I am and how I was raised by my father.” 

BABSON MAGAZINE: Read the complete Winter 2025–2026 issue.

A civil rights icon in Boston, Edmonds has spent her life and career working tirelessly to lift up everybody, especially those who need an advocate and a voice. 

Now the CEO of Jane & Company LLC, her leadership development and executive coaching business, Edmonds has served in Massachusetts state government in both Democratic and Republican administrations, as well as in key academic and community service roles. And, for the past 13 years, Edmonds also has served as vice president for programming and community outreach at Babson College, where she continues to implement ET&A in her work and endeavors. 

Recently, Edmonds has been appointed a Distinguished Public Service Fellow at the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy (CWPP) at the University of Massachusetts Boston. In collaboration with an impressive cohort of women, she will continue her work, including several important writing and storytelling projects, including possibly an oral history and a memoir. 

Edmonds recently spoke to Babson Magazine about her work and perspectives on inclusive excellence and entrepreneurial leadership. 

What does the Distinguished Public Service Fellowship mean to you?

“I think of the women who have come before me, names that have individually accomplished amazing things. I know many of them. There are just so many of them, and to be included in that group is both an honor and an invitation to me. It’s the honor of being recognized alongside these remarkable women. And the invitation, to me, is to keep doing the work that I’ve always done, and that is bridging public leadership, justice, and human possibility, but now in a new arena, as a distinguished fellow. … I’ve had a wonderful career up to now, continuing with Babson and doing other things that I do, and I really believe in human possibility. I think you have to create environments where people can thrive and flourish. It’s as simple as that and as hard as that, and it doesn’t mean for some people. If you and I were working together, I’d hope that you as a colleague would care enough about helping to create a work environment where I’d be successful and I would want the same for you. And who knows what that might mean and what we could do for each other, but I’m sure that if we had the opportunity to focus on that, we could do something that’s beneficial to each other and to our team. And that’s sort of how I operate in life.” 

What does your appointment mean to Babson? 

“When I think about Babson, the appointment, to me, affirms that entrepreneurial leadership doesn’t live only in the marketplace. It thrives in policy, in service, in the power of story to lead change, and it expands Babson’s impact into civic and public life. Babson always talks about the unpredictable world in which we live, and the need to pivot and to lead and to collaborate and to succeed. And so here we now have opportunities for our leaders within Babson—students—to actually put that to practice and think about, what are their values? What do they care about? How do they want to lead? And how do you do it in a time of uncertainty and unpredictability? So, in a way, I think Babson is perfectly poised for tough times. I mean, I think it’s better poised than any institution I know of. I’ve been around Babson for 13 years, and the people at Babson are just off-the-charts amazing. That, to me, is the strength of Babson.” 

Why is storytelling so important to you? 

“My expectations with my writing right now are too early to know, because I’m just getting started, but I want to surface stories. That’s why I wrote the two pieces I’ve worked on for the past year, stories that haven’t been heard necessarily, so that I can, in a sense, pass the mic to the next generation of women leaders, or male leaders, who might feel that there’s something beneficial to hear from me. I want people to recognize that storytelling isn’t just decorative. To me, it’s decisive. You have a way of thinking about what you’re going to say, and you can try to get it across in a way that will be heard, without preaching, without lecturing, without yelling. My angle is I’m going to share some things that might be hard to hear but in a way that hopefully you can hear, and that might even make you say that something like that has happened to me, maybe in a different form, so that you can have a greater connection with somebody else. I have simple-minded concepts, but I truly believe they work. I think the easiest way to break down barriers among people is to take the time to really know each other, to see the commonalities that exist.” 

“For me, entrepreneurial leadership asks, What’s possible? And inclusive leadership might ask, Who’s missing? And, if you put those two questions together, then you’re going to have a greater ability to unlock real innovation and real justice.”
Jane Edmonds P’19

How can entrepreneurial leaders help shape a world in which everyone can thrive and flourish? 

“For me, entrepreneurial leadership asks, What’s possible? And inclusive leadership might ask, Who’s missing? And, if you put those two questions together, then you’re going to have a greater ability to unlock real innovation and real justice. That’s one way I think about it: What’s possible, and what’s missing? You can apply that simply to anything you do. If you want to improve your home, if you want to fix your porch, you think about what is possible, what can you do? That leaves a whole string of questions you can ask yourself—whether you need permitting, whether you need a certain kind of wood, or whether you need materials. But, if you ask the next question, what’s missing, you may decide to collaborate and bring in other minds to get additional insights that’s going to make a difference in what you ultimately do with that porch. That’s generally what happens when you are effective in collaborating and using the skills that you bring to the table and joining them with others who have a contribution to make as well.” 

Where do you see opportunities today for people to practice that and make a difference? 

“I see opportunity in quiet places. Some would say that that’s where people feel invisible or unheard. Of course, I’ve been in many boardrooms where I see somebody’s idea getting passed over and or in a setting where somebody wonders if her voice might matter. I’ve seen that happen. There are so many people who have a lot to say, and there’s a lot of noise being generated from a lot of directions, and sometimes I feel that, are you missing something? I’ve learned through my own experience that part of being able to continue to move forward has had a lot to do with trying to figure out what I’m missing.” 

What advice do you have for future entrepreneurial leaders? 

“Leaders of today and the future should lead with guts and grace. They need to be bold enough to act and wise enough to listen. I have written before about the need to believe in the power of your own becoming. For all of us, our story isn’t over, so we have to recognize that no matter what our age is, what our background is, or what setbacks we may have experienced, that we are all still becoming. It’s a reminder for us to stay open and to stay growing and to never count yourself out. They should stay curious. They should stay human. They should not be afraid to be the one who asks harder questions in quieter moments, so they have a greater ability to see other people in other places, because that probably is where change starts, when you have a chance to see something differently. That’s why I think storytelling helps, because storytelling can help create culture change. 

“So, being asked to be a fellow, it really is helping me to deepen my own commitment to help other people lead with moral courage. That’s what I’ve taken from the people I admire, and to remind them that legacy is not something that you leave behind, but it’s what you build with others in the moment.”

Posted in Community, Entrepreneurial Leadership

Tagged Campus, Entrepreneurial Leadership, Inclusive Excellence, Babson Magazine

More from Babson Magazine »