Jo Fairley is an entrepreneur with outstanding practical marketing skills and vision, best known to business audiences as co-founder of internationally successful Green & Black’s organic chocolate. She will visit the Isle of Man on the 20th October to addrees the Isle of Man Sporting and Dining Club
Jo has been “green” since 1972 when she got into trouble at school for putting bricks in loo cisterns to save water!
Having left school with minimal qualifications, Jo started her career in journalism and soon became the U.K’s youngest-ever national magazine editor aged just 23. Widely recognised and highly regarded as a journalist,  Jo had an environment column on the Women’s pages of The Times – Ecosphere – and co-presented a BskyB TV Show called Go For Green with David Bellamy. She is Chair of The Soil Association’s Health Products Standards Committee, helping to set the standards for organic and natural cosmetics in the UK, and is also “Matron” of the Women’s Environmental Network. Jo juggled creating Green & Black’s (with her husband Craig Sams), with her writing career.
Jo’s straightforward, dynamic approach to marketing was key to Green & Black’s global success. Known worldwide, Green & Black’s is an organic and ethical brand, committed to Fairtrade standards. She used all her journalistic and PR insights to help build Green & Black’s without spending a single penny on advertising, until the brand was eight years old, during which she didn’t take a salary as the business needed all the support she could give.
Green & Black’s is undoubtedly one of the best-known brands in the food world, and is one of the very few to be feted both for its quality and for its ethical credentials. The chocolate has everything: its wikedly delicious, it’s luxurious. Yet it is also good for the planet – and good for the people who produce it. No other brand has done more to turn the world on to organic and fairtrade production – creating a blueprint for sustainability that’s practical and viable.
In their book “Sweet Dreams”, Craig & Jo tell their story, and show how their combined expertise in organic food, marketing, branding, integrity and ethics, plus all-round business acumen have helped grow and sustain Green & Black’s to the successful product we enjoy today. Both inspiring and entertaining, their journey tells what is possible when you decide to tear up the rule book and follow your instincts.

Kevin Cartledge, Senior Manager at HSBC, Isle of Man says, "Green & Black's success is proof that you can have a sustainable business which is both profitable and respects the environment. HSBC's goal is to be one of the world's leading brands in corporate sustainability so it is a real pleasure for us to welcome Jo to the Isle of Man and hear first hand how she has successfully brought these elements together in her business."
John Wannenburgh of the Sporting & Dining Club: “Whilst Jo Fairley’s name may not be as instantly recognizable as that of her creation Green & Black’s, her entrepreneurial spirit, business acumen and loyalty to her green roots have given us a first class product. Her story is one of David vs Goliath, but it demostrates just how marketing and branding skills can single handedly change how a product is sourced and sold.”http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2004/apr/18/foodanddrink.features18