“The quality of our lives has to do with how we treat each other and how kind we are to friends and strangers”
Life is sweet for entrepreneur, mentor and modern philanthropist Jo Fairley, but throughout her varied career, Jo’s learned many life lessons,
Jo Fairley is going on holiday in a couple of days. You may expect that the co-founder of Green & Black’s – the organic chocolate brand that was one of the first companies to receive a Fairtrade Mark 25 years ago – would be headed to some far-flung location. But no. Jo is travelling to the garden ‘shed’ of her Hastings home. And she sounds genuinely excited about it.
“I love holidaying at home,” she explains. “But if I stay in the house, where my office is, people ask me to do things and before I know it, I’m working again.”
You can easily imagine this – Jo is an obvious ‘do’-er – founder of several companies, a mentor, speaker and philanthropist – and, admittedly, Jo’s Instagram account reveals that the ‘shed’ that she describes is a rather stylish affair. However, it’s a window into the way that she approaches the world. In person, Jo is friendly and surprisingly down-to-earth. She laughs easily at herself and is quick to notice if something she says sounds a bit ‘grand’. And, even though her many professional hats (more of which later) necessitate global travel, she avoids taking flights as much as possible, mindful of its effect on the environment.
“If I don’t have to fly, I won’t,” she says. “I’m always shocked when someone says they’re taking a plane to Paris. Why would you do that if you can take the train? And I absolutely love train journeys; there’s something so old school and romantic about them.”
FINDING GOLD
The story of the birth of Green & Black’s has passed into entrepreneurial legend. Back in 1991, Jo sampled some chocolate sourced by her soon-to-be-husband, Craig Sams, and fell in love with the taste of the 70% cocoa solids. Craig was a big noise in the food world, having set up Whole Earth Foods in 1967, a pioneering chain of stores selling organic and macrobiotic produce. For Jo, however, moving into the chocolate world represented a bigger leap of faith – the kind typified by a postcard she bought as a teenager, which bore the words, ‘If you don’t do it, you’ll never know what would have happened if you had done it.’ Then in her 30s, her background was in media – having already achieved the accolade of Britain’s youngestever magazine editor at the tender age of 23. Although we now know Green & Black’s to be a success, at the time it was a significant gamble, as she decided to use the money from the sale of her flat to launch the company. And, despite it being one of the first UK companies to be awarded a Fairtrade certification back in 1994, Jo explains that the pioneering nature
of Green & Black’s wasn’t something that they put too much thought into at the time.
“We were just doing what we were passionate about,” she says. “Back then, it was a small, supportive community; we were fighting the good fight as it were.” The brand was sold to Cadbury Schweppes in 2005 but, according to Jo, “the legacy we helped create is definitely one of my life’s proudest achievements.”
FOLLOWING HER NOSE
Jo has continued to ‘just do’ since then, from the Hastings-based wellbeing hub, The Wellington Health & Wellbeing Centre, which she set up in 2007, to her latest venture, The Perfume Society. Jo defines herself as being her own customer. She’s good at spotting gaps in the market and then turning that idea into reality. With The Perfume Society, she aims to help us all disconnect from the mindful-draining demands of the digital world by reconnecting with our senses, specifically the sense of smell. “It is an incredibly powerful sense that we all need to redevelop,” she explains. “It is being forgotten because our visual sense is so dominant right now.”
And that’s not all on her list. Jo describes herself as a serial mentor and entrepreneur and is passionate about her mentoring work, where she helps businesses to reach their full potential. She’s helped women working in areas ranging from digital to illustration to food. It also aligns with her belief in ‘paying it forward’. “I was so lucky to have people at the start of my career who helped me, so it’s about giving something back. However, there has to be a spark there,” she says. “I have to wholeheartedly believe in the person and what they are proposing.” As with so many of her decisions, she’s learned to follow her instincts.
HERE’S SOME SHE MADE EARLIER
Jo traces her philanthropic attitude back to watching charity drives on the children’s TV show Blue Peter, with her three younger brothers.
“It was hugely influential on me,” she explains. “I got my love of helping people and doing good for others from that show, and it gave me my attitude for life.”
Another thing that has stuck with her since childhood is the power of visualisation – so long as you combine it with action, too.
“I stuck pictures of people I was inspired by inside my wardrobe,” she says. “I’ve since gone on and met most of those people over the course of my life. Naturally, serendipity plays a part, but I think that
“You have to love people, warts and all. Once you accept that you can’t change anybody, the happier you’re going to be”
if you can wholeheartedly envision a positive outcome, you remove psychological barriers.”
Although Jo admits that her past endeavours – including the sale of Green & Black’s and her output as the author of the Beauty Bible book series – afford her “a very nice life,” she still operates a small overdraft just to keep her on her toes. And money offers no protection from life’s harsher moments, as Jo discovered in 2000 when she found the body of her best friend, TV presenter Paula Yates, who had died from an accidental overdose. The tragedy led Jo – who shares grown-up stepchildren Rima and Karim along with adopted daughter Lily with Craig – to become even closer to her godchildren, Paula’s daughters Fifi Trixibelle and Tiger Lily, and she cherishes her relationships with them.
What did this challenging episode of her life teach her? “You have to love people; warts and all. Once you accept that you can’t change anybody, the happier you’re going to be.”
THE VALUE OF KINDNESS
Today, one of the mantras that underpins Jo’s life is inspired by Barbara Bush, the former First Lady. She believed in personal responsibility; that the state of the country wasn’t just down to what happened in government, but in every individual’s home.
“I took her words to mean that the quality of our lives has way more to do with how we treat each other on a daily basis and how kind we are to family, friends and strangers,” Jo says. “So, anything that makes other people’s lives better or easier, whether that’s giving up your seat on the train to someone or cooking for a new mum or a bereaved friend, is something we can all directly do. I believe that if everyone channelled the energy that they currently put into getting angry with the government and online at each other, the world would be such a different place. It’s a fairly Buddhist approach to life, even though I’m not remotely religious,” she admits. This attitude has taken many forms over the years, from establishing a Peace Garden in Hasting’s Alexandra Park to running a self-confidence programme for young women at Centrepoint, the London-based homelessness charity.
And Jo practises what she preaches, looking after her own daily wellbeing with a ‘very detailed to-do list’ – 10-minute meditation, knitting and daily swims in the sea, handily located just 300m away from her front door. And another important key to Jo’s own peace of mind, she says, is not having any regrets. “Well, I do have one,” she laughs. It’s the one that got away: “A set of glass-topped French Wheat Sheaf tables I saw in 1987 on Ninth Street in New York that I wish I’d bought! I still think about them from time to time, but realise that it’s a complete waste of energy.” With design classics as with life, “You’ve got to keep on moving forward.” It seems unlikely that Jo Fairley is planning on stopping any time soon.