Jo was Director of Bristol Zoo Gardens and CEO of its parent charity, The Bristol Zoological Society, where he worked from 2001 to 2010. Previously, he was Director of London Zoo and Zoological Director of the Zoological Society of London for nine years, having been appointed as Curator of Mammals in 1988.
He graduated in Zoology from Imperial College, London, in 1973, completed his PhD in 1977, held a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver from 1977-1979, and spent the next nine years conducting research and lecturing on mammalian population ecology and social behaviour at Royal Holloway (London) and Bath Universities.
He was awarded an OBE in 2000. He has Honorary Doctorates from the Universities of Kingston (1993) and Bristol (2011). Jo chaired the Conservation Committee of the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA) from 2002 to 2010, and is currently Chair of the Advisory and Finance Committees of the Conservation Planning Specialist Group (CPSG) of the World Conservation Union (IUCN).
He has wide experience in running, chairing, and being a trustee of charitable organisations, in finance and risk management, and in fundraising and marketing.
Jo has a long-standing love of baroque music, and Christian helped him organise and provide the (small) orchestra and singers for both his 60th and 70th birthday parties; at the former, Lucy Crowe and David Bates sang; at the latter, Augusta Hebbert, James Laing and Joseph Kennedy.
He joined the EOC Board in 2011, and became Chair in 2013.