Mary Jo Jacobi

Board Mentor
Criticaleye

A Criticaleye Board Mentor, Mary Jo offers rare insights into the private, public and third sectors gained from senior leadership positions in the UK and US.

Mary Jo currently is a non-executive director of Mulvaney Capital Management and Panafsat and chair of The IDM Group. She also is a director of a variety of not-for-profit organisations in the UK and US and is a Visiting Fellow of Leeds University Business School and Oxford University's Centre for Corporate Reputation. She was appointed to the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments by Prime Minister David Cameron in June 2012.

Mary Jo previously led reputation management for some of the world’s largest corporations, including Royal Dutch Shell, HSBC, Lehman Brothers and Drexel Burnham Lambert. She devised and delivered Lehman's and HSBC's award-winning global rebranding strategies. Most recently, she was Executive Vice President of BP America in the aftermath of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

From 2001 to 2005 Mary Jo was a British Civil Service Commissioner, appointed by The Queen under the Royal Prerogative. She had been appointed Assistant Secretary of Commerce (Minister of State) by US President George H W Bush and was Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, who also appointed her to his Advisory Committee on Trade Negotiations and, ex officio, to his Advisory Committee on Women’s Business Ownership. She also served on the staff of the US Senate Committee on Commerce.

Mary Jo has been an executive director of Drexel Burnham and a non-executive director of Tate & Lyle PLC, the Ladies European Golf Tour and the Ladies Professional Golf Association, which she chaired for five years.

Mary Jo has an MBA from George Washington University and a Bachelor of Business Administration from Loyola University New Orleans.