Guests turning up for a businesswomen’s networking event at Aberdeen Music Hall later this month will get to enjoy a genuine chocolate experience.
One of the speakers is Jo Fairley, co-founder of organic choccy brand Green & Black’s.
Insights from her career and in particular her chocolate-making days are sure to leave guests feeling entertained.
Ms Fairley will take the stage alongside north-east entrepreneur Jeanette Forbes.
The entrepreneurial duo will be interviewed by Kylie Reid, the founder of egg – said to be Scotland’s largest online platform “connecting, supporting and celebrating women”.
Chocolate brand co-founded by Jo Fairley is now owned by Cadbury’s
As well as her career in chocolate, Ms Fairley is the author of The Beauty Bible – a series of books on beauty and wellbeing – and a regular columnist for leading magazines and newspapers.
After leaving school at 16 with six “O’”Levels, she became the youngest-ever magazine editor in the UK at the age of 23.
She founded Green & Black’s in 1991 with her husband, Craig Sams.
The business was snapped up by Cadbury’s, in 2005, but Ms Fairley remains a “chocolate ambassador”.
Green & Black’s chocolate was the first product to carry the UK Fairtrade.
Ms Fairley now runs an organic store and wellbeing centre in her home town of Hastings.
Ms Forbes is the chief executive and founder of Aberdeen-based technology services firm PCL Group.
She also owns upmarket wine bar Grape & Grain in the Granite City’s west end.
In addition, Ms Forbes is the chief executive of Blue Gentoo and a director of Edinburgh-based Ommica, both of which specialise in technology for the energy sector.
She founded PCL in 2000 after being made redundant. It now has clients in 27 countries.
PCL’s boss is also a founding member of the Scottish Chambers of Commerce business mentoring programme, and a burgess of Aberdeen.
And she’s featured in two books about women in leadership.
First Women on Top gig in Aberdeen
Ms Fairley and Ms Forbes will be in the spotlight at the music hall on Thursday March 21.
It is the first Aberdeen date for egg’s Women on Top events.
The online group was launched only last year but already boasts support for more than 100,000 women and in excess of 1,000 local businesses.
Created in Edinburgh, egg also operates in Glasgow, Dundee, Perth and now Aberdeen.
Its Women on Top events are backed by funding from the Scottish Government and Royal Bank of Scotland.
Meanwhile, the “Willy Wonka Experience” – the Glasgow event that went viral on social media after guests shelled out £35 each for a less-than-memorable display of cheap props – continues to shock people around the world for its dire homage to the fictional chocolate-maker.
Now an internet meme, the shambolic attraction has put Glasgow under a global spotlight for all the wrong reasons.
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