Meet Jo Spilsbury
I didn’t set out to become the person owners call when things get complicated. But here I am - 25 years in and that’s exactly what I do.
I’ve led HR and businesses through restructures, acquisitions, whistleblowing investigations, leadership crises and the kinds of conversations that nobody else wanted to have.
25 years in senior HR leadership across two very different operating contexts: eight years as Head of HR / Head of HR Business Partnering and more than a decade inside a 10,000 plus-person public sector organizations as Head of HR Strategy and Employee Relations, where the politics were every bit as complex as the people issues.
I’ve seen what good looks like and I’ve seen what happens when it goes wrong. I’ve learned the gap between the two is almost always smaller than people think.
I moved to the US in 2022 and started over.
No network, no clients and no reputation in this market. Just 25 years of experience and the conviction that what I'd built in the UK was worth something here too.
That turned out to be more true than I expected - and more humbling than I'd like to admit.
Building Mercate from scratch taught me that most business owners aren't struggling because they make poor decisions. The struggles come from not having the right support at the right moment. You're juggling HR responsibilities because there's nobody else to carry them. Handling the complaint, the resignation, the difficult manager, the compliance questions you're not sure about — on top of everything else you're supposed to be doing.
That's where I come in. If you want to know what that looks like in practice, take a look at my Services page - or just book a call and we’ll talk.
On the UK experience and why it’s relevant to you
UK employment law is genuinely complex. Redundancy processes, TUPE transfers, collective consultation, tribunal exposure, protected characteristics — the framework is detailed, the risk is real and the bar for getting it right is high.
I spent my career working inside that framework. Which means I developed a level of rigor and risk awareness that most HR professionals — wherever they're trained — simply don't get unless they've had to. I'm not easily rattled by a difficult situation because I've usually seen a version of it before.
When I work with businesses here, I bring the same rigor. Calibrated for your context. I'm not here to make your business feel like a London or New York law firm — but the instinct for what matters, what the risk actually is, and what to do about it? I can do that.
What I’ve learned working with smaller businesses.
I know what HR looks like at scale. The governance structures, the strategy frameworks, the way a well-built people function operates.
What I’ve learned working with founders and leadership teams is that the principles don’t change - it’s just the proportions. You don’t need the apparatus of a large corporation. You need the thinking behind it, right-sized for where you actually are - built to last and not bolted on.
Most of the businesses I work with have never had proper senior HR support before. Not because they didn’t need it but because it wasn’t accessible.
What you’ll get from me.
I’ll ask the questions others avoid. I’ll say the thing that needs saying and I’ll be steady when things get complicated - because that’s when you need someone who isn’t panicking alongside you.
Someone told me recently that nobody wants the best for a business except the business owner themselves, I understand why they believe that - but I’d push back.
When I’m working with your business, I’m not clocking hours against a scope of work. I care whether it lands and whether the things we build together fits when I’m not there. Your business reflects on me and more than that, the people in it deserve to get this right.