This week on the PRmoment podcast, we've got Jo Carr, co-founder, and chief client officer at Hope&Glory.

Hope&Glory was co-founded by Jo Carr and James Gordon-MacIntosh in 2011. It now has a fee income of circa £8.5 million, employs about 80 people and grew by 25% in 2019.

[00:01:26] How Jo originally wanted to be a journalist or work in advertising.

[00:03:33] How Jo was originally a corpsumer PR person and made the switch to consumer relatively late in her career.

[00:08:15] Jo talks about the importance of being able to be yourself at work: “I'm a big believer that you should be the same person at work as you are at home".

[00:09:30] Why Jo's time at QBO Bell Pottinger was such an important time of her career.

[00:11:43] Whether the relatively painful merger of QBO and Bell Pottinger Consumer has had an influence on Jo not wanting to sell Hope&Glory so far?

[00:14:57] How Jo meeting James Gordon-MacIntosh was a career-defining bit of luck.

[00:17:11] Jo tells us how it felt being the new kid at 77PR – joining an established management team of Alan Twigg and James Gordon-MacIntosh.

[00:18:32] How James, Alan and Jo approached Omnicom to try and do an MBO of 77PR, but got knocked back.

[00:20:33] Why once you've thought about creating your own agency, it's very hard to put the "genie back into the bottle".

[00:21:18] Why James and Jo decided to get backing from Lansons Communications when they launched Hope&Glory.

[00:22:37] What it was like starting Hope&Glory with literally no clients!

[00:25:50] How Hope&Glory won 02 just a couple of months after starting.

[00:27:08] Why James’s and Jo's skills complement each other.

[00:30:24] What advice does Jo have for any budding PR entrepreneurs out there?

[00:36:53] How has Hope&Glory managed to hold on to so many large consumer accounts for such a prolonged period?

[00:39:39] Why agencies don't want to "be a leaky bucket".

[00:40:22] How Hope&Glory has improved its margins in recent years.

[00:45:00] What's the plan for the next stage of Hope&Glory? Why James and Jo can't make all the decisions anymore.

[00:46:34] Are independent agencies currently more fun, more flexible, and perhaps a bit easier to lead than their group-owned peers?