Joanna started as Chief Executive of Surrey County Council in March 2018.

Prior to this, Joanna worked at KPMG, where she led relationships with local and regional government, advising clients on how they could transform their organisations, and work more innovatively with their customers and citizens.

Joanna and her teams worked on some innovative devolution and public service reform programmes in Greater Manchester, the West Midlands and in the South West. Joanna worked with top teams to rethink their strategic ambition and agree new approaches to address the challenges and opportunities that the public sector faces, including with a county council, as well as a group of health organisations.
Joanna has more than 30 years’ experience in the public sector and has deep experience in delivering transformational change, cost reduction and service improvement. She has expertise in achieving improved outcomes through partnerships as well as across public sector systems. She has worked on leadership, governance and corporate reform programmes and is skilled in working in complex political systems.

Joanna joined KPMG in 2015 from Essex County Council, where she was the Chief Executive for nearly 9 years. She is known for her innovative approach to public sector reform and as CEO she implemented, for example, the first social impact bond in local government; developed a community budgets approach to public service delivery; as well as designing creative models to achieve community resilience and social value. 

Joanna started her career in social housing and regeneration- she has deep knowledge and expertise in these fields.