Finding out who your customers really are

Jo Wilkinson

Jo is a Product and R&D Transformation Leader with more than 25 years’ experience shaping high tech solutions, modernising global engineering organisations, and enabling teams to deliver customer centred products with clarity and confidence. Her career spans hands on scientific development, global product innovation, and senior leadership across complex hardware–software environments. This gives her a rare ability to translate technical depth into practical, accessible learning for others. Jo began her career in laboratory and technical roles, building deep expertise in materials testing, rheology, experimental design, and customer applications. This early grounding in real world problem solving shaped her pragmatic, evidence based approach to product development. Over the following decade, she became a trusted specialist in product testing, customer insight, and requirements definition, supporting major product launches and representing her organisation at international scientific conferences. As she progressed into leadership roles, Jo became a catalyst for transformation. She introduced Design Thinking across international R&D teams, trained more than 150 engineers and scientists in data driven development, and embedded modern product methodologies that improved quality, delivery performance, and customer alignment. Her work in developing global operating models, career frameworks, and cross functional delivery systems has reshaped how teams collaborate and innovate. Most recently, Jo led large, multi disciplinary engineering groups through organisational change, capability building, and strategic alignment - consistently improving productivity, clarity, and customer focused decision making. As an Event Delivery Partner, she draws on this rich blend of technical expertise, facilitation skill, and transformation leadership to help businesses gain clarity, understand their customers, and make meaningful progress with confidence.