Born 13th April, 1972 in Congleton, Cheshire, Jo’s love for both business and travelling was instigated at a young age by her father’s career requiring the family to frequently move around the UK. Moving house and exploring new regions became second nature, with relocating from Cheshire to Berkshire, to Gloucestershire and then finally settling back in Cheshire, where her family set up home in Knutsford.

After completing her G.C.S.E’s (1998) and subsequently her A-Levels (1990) at Knutsford High School, Jo wasted no time in heading to the other side of England to embark on her B.A Honours Degree in Accountancy at Newcastle Polytechnic (known as Northumbria University from 1991). Here, Jo enjoyed the bright lights of Newcastle and a little bit of studying from 1990 to 1993!

After graduating and having crunched enough numbers for the last three years, true to her early travelling bug, Jo and a couple of friends decided it would be fun to go travelling in America for a few months. And so to America, where chance would have it that Jo and her companions ended up working for a company called AIRPIC for five months. Based in New York State, Jo’s work consisted of selling aerial photographs door-to-door to residential customers. Re-kindling her accountancy spark, Jo soon cottoned on to the lucrative scheme that by selling just three photographs a week, she could earn enough commission to pay for a week of food, drink, and most importantly socialising.

Although at the time, selling three photographs per week satisfied Jo and supported her early post-graduation travelling era, the prospect of getting a ‘proper’ job and clearing the student debt forever loomed. So after five months and before an American accent had set in, Jo headed back across the Atlantic and returned home.

With none of her student debt being cleared during her time in America and her parents breathing down her neck about monetary issues, Jo’s exposure to undertaking full time work soon arrived in the form of a Christmas job at Marks & Spencers. Initially, her job was for two months over the Christmas period working in Ladies Fashion & Customer Service, but in the end Jo and her best friend loved it so much that they ended up staying for six months - although looking back, Jo thinks it was probably due more to the hefty discounts they received on M & S food! Eventually M & S were starting to offer permanent jobs and Jo suddenly realised that after 3 years of studying for a degree, she ought to move on.

In June 1994, Jo’s career with Kinetic commenced. Looking back, she can’t place any reason for deciding to apply for Recruitment jobs; it was just something that happened and during that period, like a lot of people, she applied to an advert in the Manchester Evening News. Way back then, Jo worked as an ‘Operator’, rather than today’s term of a ‘Consultant’. Working within Kinetic’s biggest office in Manchester, Jo really got her teeth into Recruitment; she loved the buzz of it and realised it was what she wanted to do. In 1994 Jo qualified as a C.I.P.D Graduate and has recently become a Chartered Member of the body.

As ever with Kinetic, the company’s accelerated growth and entrepreneurial culture brought exciting opportunities for those that were seeking them. This was certainly the case for Jo. In April 1995, Kinetic decided they wanted to open an office in Newcastle and asked if anyone internal were interested in applying. Jo’s love for Newcastle from her University days coupled with her early success in Recruitment instigated her to take the brave decision to apply, meaning she’d move away from her family once again.

The Newcastle office became the fastest growing office to open in its time and Jo was one of the initial three that set it up. True to Kinetic’s current ethos, Jo and her colleagues had full autonomy to develop the office and she put in extreme effort to make it work and show everyone in Kinetic that a branch could be started off. It worked and in 1996 Jo was made Branch Manager of the Newcastle office.

Jo was Branch Manager from 1997 to 1999 and became a Regional / Area Manager across the North East, Yorkshire & Midlands, where her expertise in the Operational & Quality side of the Business really aided Kinetic’s growth. Later in 1999, Kinetic’s structure changed slightly, as did M.D’s and Jo was promoted to Operations Director.

Although her title has stayed the same since then, through to today, her role has changed dramatically over this time and she has directly overseen various instrumental projects, including the roll-out of Adapt Recruitment Database across the company, centralisation of payroll / administration from the regions, launching Kinetic Nursing Services, implementing ISO 9001:2000, Investors in People and organising the annual Company Conference.

Since joining Kinetic 14 years’ ago, Jo has experienced and managed some exceptional changes and she is extremely proud to have been given the opportunity to be part of Kinetic’s amazing organic success. Most of all, Jo is grateful to have worked with a dedicated, committed and innovative group of people, of which she truly feels that without them, the journey wouldn’t have been half as much fun.


Away from life at Kinetic Jo is married to Colin, who owns a Financial & Tax Consultancy business. They have one child, Jake, who is nearly two. Amongst her hobbies, Jo loves cooking for dinner parties, organising weekends away with family & friends and of course adores travelling abroad (Jo has installed this passion into her son - Jake has already seen 4 different countries in under two years!). Above all of this, Jo’s greatest passion is skiing; something she has enjoyed since the age of 15. She finds it the most exhilarating & fun sport and thinks that the après ski is just phenomenal!