During her 30 years’ experience with Marks & Spencer, Jo has progressed through a varied range of roles including store management, franchise partnerships and overseas operations, change management programmes, customer service across all channels for the M&S UK operation, and more latterly, Head of Transformation for the Store and Property Group.
In her position as Head of Customer Service, she played a fundamental role in leading the recovery of the brand’s service ethos through establishing a clear customer proposition supported by the appropriate structure, recruitment, training, performance management and reward mechanisms. Jo was able to achieve this transformation through strong stakeholder engagement and communication and a relentless approach to doing the right thing for customers. Jo attributes the success of this work in part to developing a clear plan and evolving this over time rather than trying too many different initiatives which had been the previous approach. She has taken this skill set with her into her current role, leading the development of the plans to transform the Store and Property business as part of the wider Transformation Plan.
Jo was the Chair of Governors for a local primary school, where she took an active role in bringing her business skills to use in a different field. She was a Non-Executive Director for a Housing Association based in Kent from 2014 to 2022, where she brought her customer experience knowledge to bear in a different sector. She is currently a Non-Executive Director / Senior Independent Director for Vivid Housing, a social provider based in the Home Counties; a Non-Executive Director for Dolphin Homes and she also sits on the main Board of Ofsted.
In 2003 Jo graduated with Distinction from a part time MBA course at Aston Business School and is regularly asked to speak about customer service at external events.
