From childhood adversity to global HR leadership, Jessie Heath shares how empathy, fatherhood, and self-acceptance drive his work.
Emma Coppin
Multimedia Content Lead, Thought Leadership and Customer Stories
Workday
Jessie Heath’s origin story begins in Iraan, Texas—a tiny desert oil town where his mother walked to the hospital to give birth to him. “My mom tells the story fondly that my crib was a dresser drawer,” Jessie recalls.
That same resourcefulness followed him into childhood. Raised amid deep poverty and volatile family conditions, Jessie learned survival early. At three years old, his mother made the decision to pack their bags and flee an abusive household. “I was only three at the time, but I remember packing our bags really quick and her saying, ‘We’ve gotta go,’” Jessie shares.
Though the years that followed involved living with extended family and making ends meet on butter-and-sugar sandwiches, Jessie found glimmers of happiness in riding his bike down dirt streets. And by age 13 he'd taken his first job working in a cornfield. He kept at it through the summer even after discovering he was allergic to corn, coming home daily with his eyes swollen shut. Survival, by then, was just how he operated.
Crucially during this time, his mother encouraged his individuality—defending his choice to pursue cooking, cleaning, or kitchen design over football. “She pushed back on all of that,” he says. “I think that’s part of why I try to make sure I’m understanding the people around me, as well as giving them space to be themselves.”
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“I think that’s part of why I try to make sure I’m understanding the people around me, as well as giving them space to be themselves.”
That instinct to protect his own individuality wasn't always so easy to hold onto. Growing up in an environment where he felt he had to suppress his true self, Jessie attempted to fit a prescribed narrative by preparing to become a church pastor. “I was dead set on changing myself to be able to fit into this narrative,” he admits.
But during his senior year of high school, a routine blood donation changed everything. A letter from the Red Cross revealed a hepatitis C diagnosis—a condition with little research at the time and a bleak medical forecast suggesting he might only make it to 35.
Faced with this heavy reality at 18, Jessie made a defining choice: “I decided at that point in time, I’ve got to stop living like I belong with the people who told me that I was wrong.”
He walked away from Bible college and spent a gap year working in retail to figure out who he actually was. That decision transformed his path: it led him to meet his future husband and establish a practice of examining his situation, deciding what needed to shift, and taking tangible steps to change it.
“I decided at that point in time, I’ve got to stop living like I belong with the people who told me that I was wrong.”
As Jessie entered the corporate world, his drive to prove himself turned against him. “I joined a corporate world of, ‘Hey, you have to do this to fit in.’ So I was working 70-hour weeks, focused on my career and how fast I could grow it,” he explains. While he quickly became a high-potential leader brought in to fix processes across locations, the strain took a serious toll on his mental health.
Having navigated anxiety and depression for years, a particularly serious panic attack became the wakeup call that transformed his leadership approach to what we see today:
If leadership taught Jessie what he wanted work to feel like, fatherhood taught him where work actually belonged in his life. His priorities shifted dramatically 11 years ago with the arrival of his first child. “If I could have been a dad at 20, I totally would have done it,” he smiles. For Jessie, fatherhood isn't something that sits on the sidelines—it is the primary focus of his life.
“Work is really my side gig. It’s the thing that pays my bills...but work is not everything in life,” he reflects. “I tell people all the time, once I die, 10 years later, most likely nobody’s going to remember me at work. But my children will always remember who I am, what I taught them, and where I guided them. That’s really the legacy that I want to leave behind.”
“Work is really my side gig... but work is not everything in life. My children will always remember who I am, what I taught them, and where I guided them.”
Reflecting on a journey filled with hardships, shift points, and hard-won victories, Jessie holds no regrets about the path he has traveled.
“Sitting here and being Jessie, it feels pretty fricking fantastic,” he shares. “I figured out how to leave my past in the past and be able to see it with a clear vision, but not have it control who I am going forward. I’m finally to the point in my life where it’s me—and you can either take me or leave me.”
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