Personal Excellence ProgrammeEqual Power – How We Get There
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An MP at 25, and a Minister in the coalition government at 32, Jo Swinson wasted no time in shaking up the political establishment.
Jo’s passion for improving the world of work saw her battle to extend flexible working and introduce landmark legislation to allow couples to choose how to share parental leave.
A firm believer that business can be a force for good, Jo introduced new corporate reporting requirements on human rights and gender diversity, and worked with, the then Business Secretary, Vince Cable on improving boardroom culture and promoting long-term thinking.
Jo Swinson is Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats and the party’s Shadow Foreign Secretary. She represented her home constituency of East Dunbartonshire for a decade from 2005-2015, and was re-elected to the seat in 2017.
From 2012-2015, Jo was Minister for Employment Relations and Consumer Affairs in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and Minister for Women and Equalities. As a Minister, she introduced shared parental leave, extended flexible working rights, clamped down on unscrupulous payday lenders, increased penalties on employers failing to pay workers the minimum wage, improved corporate reporting, introduced new rights for consumers buying online, created the Groceries Code Adjudicator to improve supermarkets’ treatment of suppliers and won government support to bring in gender pay gap reporting.
Jo was a member of the Environmental Audit Select Committee from 2007-2010, and a member of the Speaker’s Conference from 2009-2010, which explored ways to increase the number of women and BME MPs.
She co-founded the All Party Parliamentary Group on Wellbeing Economics, chaired the All Party Parliamentary Group on Body Image, and was a co-founder of the Campaign for Body Confidence.
Outside politics, Jo enjoys running; she completed the Loch Ness Marathon in 2007, the London Marathon in 2011 and the inaugural Stirling Marathon in 2017.
Jo’s book, Equal Power, will be published by Atlantic Books in early 2018.