Rare Birds works to promote opportunity for women in entrepreneurship and has a global vision to have one million women in its community by 2020. The business is partnered with Phronesis Academy to provide a blended learning environment to teach the skills and mindset of entrepreneurship to children and adults. Jo collaborated with Phronesis Academy co-founder Dr Richard Seymour, from the University of Sydney Business School, to develop its first program startup business. The program is being taught in selected secondary schools and is on track to be rolled out nationally.

Sharing entrepreneurial journeys is one of Rare Birds’ core offerings and Jo has so far published three books – Brilliant BusinessKids (Rare Birds), Australia’s 50 Influential Women Entrepreneurs (Rare Birds) and #IFSHECANICAN. Brilliant BusinessKids is her most recent publication, having launched in August, 2016, and is a comic book showcasing the real-life stories of 12 children – many of whom have global enterprises.

Jo has been recognised as one of Australia’s top entrepreneurs for the past six years and is a leading authority on global women’s entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship as a whole, and SMB markets. She was recently invited by Microsoft to address 45,000 delegates at its Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto and has also delivered a summer course on entrepreneurship at Oxford University. Jo is a global ambassador for Microsoft, a regional Oceania ambassador for the UN-recognised Women’s Entrepreneurship Day and is on the advisory board for University of Sydney Business School, University of Sydney Innovation and Entrepreneur Advisory Group and Launch VIC.

Jo is also on the global board of Women’s Network and is a global ambassador for innovative accounting software Xero. She is an active mentor for fast growth entrepreneurs and is passionate about encouraging young Australians to endeavour to find out exactly who it is that they want to become, and create their own jobs to achieve this.

Hear Jo speak in #SelfMade Break Out session, as part of Money. Power. Freedom.