The go-getting 33-year-old has blazed a trail as a multi-award-winning social impact
entrepreneur, champion of diversity, inclusion, and equality as well as making a mark as
an award-winning journalist and broadcaster.
Joanna has spent the last 14 years, increasing the employment of diverse talent
through inclusive hiring practices and creating inclusive working cultures.
Launching her first charity Elevation Networks Charitable Trust at 18 alongside
six colleagues in 2006, following this 2008 Joanna went on to start her own Social
Enterprise Shine Media in 2008, saw she placed over 3000 people from diverse
backgrounds into work within the creative industries.
Joanna’s latest enterprise is founding Blue Moon, a flagship inclusive Executive Search
Business and Diversity and Inclusion Consultancy Practice. Before BM, Joanna founded
Hyden, part of FTSE 250 Global Recruiter SThree, an executive search and consultancy
business.
Alongside Executive Search success, Joanna has an impressive track record in attracting,
recruiting, retaining, and promoting diverse talent and leading businesses through
culture transformation, unique recruitment processes, and challenging bias from the
top-down and bottom-up. This work, coupled with her personal story, led to her TEDx
Talk on Social Mobility in Oman in 2018.
She has been instrumental in establishing the Creative Diversity All-Party Parliamentary
Group with Baroness Deborah Bull, of which she is a joint secretary. Joanna also sits on
the UKRI Arts & Humanities Research Council and the Department for Digital, Culture,
Media and Sport Expert Advisory Panel Boundless Creativity Joint Research Project, is
an active member of the DCMS and Cultural Renewal Taskforce, Culture Committee
chaired by Tracy Brabin MP and an Everyday Ally for UN Women.
The University of Reading in 2019 awarded Joanna a Distinguished Graduate Award,
and she then received an Honorary Doctorate in Business from the University of West
England in the same year.
Joanna’s responsibilities do not end there; she is a Non-Executive Director for Investors
in People, an Advisory Board member RISE a group for women in Broadcast,
Ambassador Mental Health in Recruitment, Expert Advisory Board Member for New
Scotland Yard counter terrorism Advisory Board, a Trustee for The Lord Mayor’s
Appeal, Trustee and Director of The Media Society. Joanna is also a Trustee and Director
of Haberdasher Askes Trust Federation Board and School Governor of Hatcham College
and Mulberry Academy Shoreditch. Joanna was also awarded her Freedom of the City in
2018 and became the first black female to become a Liverywoman for theWorshipful
Company of Haberdashers.
Joanna was also awarded an MBE in the 2020 New Year’s Honours list for her services
to diversity and inclusion in the creative and media industries