Jessica grew up in a west-London council estate, was expelled from school at 15 with four GCSEs and became a mother just two years later. After a chance meeting with celebrity publicist Connie Filippello, Jessica worked her way from office junior to founding her own influential boutique agency, JHPR, which she ran for over a decade.
After struggling to find greetings cards that were representative of her daughter, Jessica launched award-winning multicultural greeting card company, Color Blind Cards, in 2006. The innovative venture became the first independent Black card brand to secure high-street presence in the UK and drove an early conversation around the importance of diverse representation in retail. Color Blind went on to be distributed in the USA and South Africa.
Labelled one of Britain’s Most Inspiring Entrepreneurs by the Evening Standard, Jessica was honoured with an MBE in 2014 for entrepreneurship and her contribution to diversity. In 2016, when Jessica’s father was diagnosed with terminal cancer, for the first time in her life she stopped doing and became present. Her experience caring for her beloved father prompted a total transformation of her life and inspired her first book, Purpose, which was published by Hay House in 2018, and updated in 2021.
Passionate about challenging the ideologies which we hold around success, Jessica has shared the insights from the awakening that inspired her book everywhere, from corporations such as Google, EY, Grant Thornton, Virgin Media and Credit Suisse, to community projects, schools, charities and even her own Tedx Talk.
“Some of us on this earth are the candles and the lanterns.”
Ernest Livingstone Huie
Jessica’s father was one of her biggest inspirations, and his passing altered the course of her life in more ways than one. Speaking about this profound experience in Purpose, she says:
“Some of us on this earth are the candles and the lanterns. Flickering lights occasionally pointing out the way in this vast tunnel that is life. The understanding we show to our young, to those less able and to the alienated… surely this must be the only true meaningful contribution man can make, one to the other? And the only true justification for our existence on earth.” Ernest Livingstone Huie
After writing Purpose, Jessica walked away from a career working with some of the world’s biggest names, including Samuel L. Jackson, Meghan Markle, Simon Cowell and Kelly Rowland. Instead, she started helping people discover what’s truly possible when we put our soul into everything we produce. In addition to her work as a mentor to purpose-driven business owners, Jessica is a renowned public speaker and author, runs her annual Purpose Retreat in Jamaica and heads up two self-development programs, Bigger Than A Book and The Purpose Academy.
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