Jo Swann – Jo is the founder of Chocolate PR, an award-winning PR agency she established 15 years ago, after working in journalism, media, marketing and PR agencies. 

Jumping ship from a big agency in her early twenties, she set out to challenge the way PR was being done by the bigger agencies as clients were being served up terrible experiences through ineffective retainers and inauthentic agencies. 

With Chocolate PR she set out to produce accessible, effective PR services using her journalistic skills to generate visibility for her clients. She built the business up organically from scratch, and has over the years worked with companies of all sizes including the likes of Whistles, NSPCC, Learndirect, Marriott Hotels, Yo! Sushi, Dale Carnegie, Skipton Building Society to name just a few, winning many awards along the way. 

BUT – a niggling feeling was always lurking, and when you know her you know that her passion for PR goes further than just ticking a few corporate boxes. What she lives for is helping small businesses, and particularly female entrepreneurs harness the power of PR, so they can tap into it as a cost-effective, creative marketing medium. 

She believes PR is for all of us, not just the big boys and helps women who really don’t believe in themselves get empowered through coverage in the national press. 

Facing imposter syndrome head-on Jo works with her clients to create confidence in their message and to craft their story in a way that produces pride around their business and excitement for future growth. 

She’s launched a number of new services over the past 12 months to support female entrepreneurs and their teams from her free Facebook group -PR You Can Do It, to free webinars, to new coaching programmes and online courses. She’s passionate about knowledge sharing to empower more women in business to reap the benefits of PR so we can all up level and get ourselves and our businesses the visibility and credibility we deserve.