BIOGRAPHY
Jo started working in the Live Events industry at the tender age of 16 learning to do lights at the famed Pink Toothbrush Club in Essex. Over just a few months she moved from club nights to live acts and was then asked by the visiting bands to tour with them for PDs. Her work as a lighting designer led to regular touring as LD for the up and coming bands of the then new indie scene and grunge bands from Seattle.
Her creativity with light came from always having a love for the music she was responding to and the fact that she sees music in colour, shape and form, almost like a type of synesthesia. She was the youngest person in the world and the first woman to train on the LSD IKON, and worked across the world designing and operating lights and eventually all aspects of production for the first six years of her career. Towards the end of this period, she moved into Production and Tour Managing before returning to study and qualify as a Professional Youth and Community Worker.
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From Divas to Divas...
After the birth of her first child, Joanna spent time working as a Professional Youth and Community Worker; teaching, educating and empowering young people to learn and develop and, in some circumstances, re-engage with the world. Using the Arts and Music as tools to empower change in the lives of young people, her projects won awards, and she was asked to sit on national bodies to develop future working practices. Her greatest gift from this time was being told that she had inspired others to want to create change in the lives of others. That accolade is in itself a priceless gem. The return of The Lady with the Lamp ...
In 2001, Joanna returned to the Live Events Industry and began to reconnect with Lighting and Set Design. Her background in project management and resilient attitude meant she was asked to be the Crew Chief for some large shows, and the invitation to be the resident LD at the sadly now closed Ocean venue in Hackney. Following this, she was asked by The Beta Band to design the Production Design for their shows and remained with them until she left the Live Music Industry again to have her second child in 2004.
Joanna has designed and executively produced multiple corporate events, as an event designer, stylist, floral designer and producer. She is known as an Operations and Production Manager for large-scale outdoor events and the festival sector. Its all about inspiring..
Joanna is a keen advocate of Women in the Live Events and Music Industry. In 2023, Jo was nominated to be a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Manufacturing and Commerce as a changemaker across the Creative Industries.
Joanna is a committed educator and guest lecturer in Concept Design, Live Event Production, Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship and more recently, Radical care in developing creative practice. Jo develops and reviews Creative Industries qualifications and assesses the Level 7 Production Manager Apprenticeship Standard, and is a qualifications developer for the global Awarding body - Aim Group. Joanna is a keynote speaker across the world on equality in the live industry, accrediting experience, and inspiring the next generation. Joanna splits her life between being the creative driving force behind both the education and creative aspects of her career, as well as leading her team to make great ideas a reality via her projects. Hartle was based as Lead Programme Producer at Creative Basildon - a Creative People and Places Programme for 2 years until 2024, and currently serves as Senior Producer at Creative Estuary, leading the Co-Commissions Programme of 11 Arts projects that develop and engage in responses to place in 2025 across the North and South Banks of the Thames. Both roles have allowed her to serve the creative and wider communities through shared knowledge, nurturing talent and developing aspirational cultural experiences for the wider community alongside the growth of sustainable creative enterprises across the Thames Estuary. She has recently stepped aside from the live music industry, serving as Tour and Production Manager of Symphonica and Mr Switch. She has remained a consultant for varying festivals and large-scale events and Event Director for many immersive and corporate events and shows since 2021. She works with Australian Promoter Dynamics Event to represent at shows across the UK and Europe. Creative as she goes She graduated from the University of Essex in Art and the Environment in 2022, and went on to be a member of the ToMA (The other MA), an alternative Art School programme. Jo continues as a Toma Associate and is exploring the next learning experience. Joanna creates work that spans writing, film (still and moving image), sculpture and installation, combining natural found objects and materials, resonance; her recent work explores the emotions of lived experience with authenticity, capturing moments exploring her relationship to the wider world as she rounds off one chapter and moves afresh back to her inquisitiveness of colour, shape and form. The wider project naturespacecreative seeks to empower responses to natural and built environments through the arts and education, and is developing to further explore the role of creativity in recovery practices and mental health. Joanna’s special qualities are her tireless enthusiasm for ideas, finding ways to make things happen, her passion for educating and inspiring, her ability to bend time, being a dynamic and creative thinker on many levels and her ability to dispel tension with compassion. She is an avid tea drinker and West Wing super fan, and loves writing and discovering new things. Jo recognises that she processes differently from a lot of people, and finds that becoming fluent in Neurodivergent to Neurotypical behaviours is a revelation. Jo is a mom to three children, 29, 21, 17 and lives in Benfleet, Essex. She has 3 cats. In 2026, she embarks on the next stages of developing a celebrant practice, to embrace the passions, knowledge and calling through heart-led ceremonial and ritual to mark others' moments from beginnings to endings. Most mornings, you will find her on her front step, waking up to the world. |