Jo Russell

United Kingdom

Trip:

New York, New York

Mentoring:

Habiba Ali

Business

Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications and Investor Relations, Pearson

Connect with Jo Russell

Jo Russell is currently the senior vice president of corporate communications and investor relations for Pearson. Jo is a graduate of Edinburgh University, where she received a bachelor of science honour degree in physics with maths.

After graduation she spent two years in the Royal Air Force gaining experience as a pilot and competing in the Tall Ships Race. In 1997 Jo moved into Investment Banking where she spent 13 years working as an equity and primary analyst culminating her career as one of two female managing directors at JPMCazenove in 2008. During this time she also ran a female mentoring group within the bank to promote women in finance.

Jo moved into investor relations in 2010, starting her career at Mothercare before moving to Whitbread PLC in 2011. Here she re-shaped the corporate communications strategy, diversified the shareholder base to a more global weighting, delivered four Capital Market Days and championed the Women in Whitbread forum to increase the diversity across the business growing to 100 members in three years.