About Joanne
Hello. I'm Joanne — and I'm still working it out.
I'm a British storyteller, mentor, speaker and travel and lifestyle creator, currently based in Dubai. Most of what I do comes back to one question: what do you do when life changes unexpectedly?
The part I don't skip
In 2019, my daughter died. She was eighteen.
I won't pretend there's a neat way to write that sentence, or that grief is something I've "come through". It's part of me. It shapes how I see almost everything, including the work I do now.
In March 2025, I reached a breaking point. I was signed off work with PTSD. I was too unwell to keep my business going, so I closed it. Around the same time, my landlord needed to sell the house — and so I lost my home as well.
That's a lot of endings at once. And it forced a question I'd never have chosen to ask: if I can't go back to how things were, what now?
Forty-odd years, one suitcase
Letting go, one drawer at a time.
I started letting go of possessions I'd accumulated over more than four decades. Some of it was easy. Some of it really wasn't. Eventually I was travelling with a suitcase and a lot of questions.
Travel became part of the next chapter — but this isn't a story about running away from problems and finding happiness on a beach. The problems came with me. What changed was the perspective: new places, new people and the space to ask who I am when the roles I'd built my life around had gone.
That's what interests me most: the reality of change. Grief, identity, uncertainty, the odd moment of joy that catches you off guard, and the slow, practical work of figuring out how to live differently.
How it all connects
Mentoring is where my experience becomes useful to someone else. I work with people who are at a crossroads and asking what comes next — helping them think clearly and move forward at their own pace.
Writing is where I tell the story properly. Breakdown to Boarding Pass is my memoir in progress, published on Substack.
Speaking is where I share the bigger ideas — identity, the fear of judgement and the stories we tell ourselves about our lives.
Travel and lifestyle content is my professional creator work. I've built an audience of approx. 81,000 across Instagram, TikTok and Facebook, and I partner with hotels, resorts, spas and destinations on paid content.
The next chapter doesn't have to look like the life that came before. Mine certainly doesn't.