Jo Godsmark (nee Snashall) is a chartered engineer, having graduated from Cambridge University with a Masters in Manufacturing Engineering. Jo was sponsored through university by Ford Motor Company, working in manufacturing, design and marketing during her time with the company. However the attractions of Dagenham were not enough to beat the lure of making sweets and in 1990 she joined Mars Confectionery in Slough as a graduate trainee.
From 1990 to 1997 Jo worked as an engineering manager and implemented a number of significant projects, improved the factory’s despatch capability, led change-over minimisation projects, worked in the company’s factory in the Netherlands and managed maintenance and project engineering teams.
Jo’s engineering career culminated with 3 years living and working in the Czech Republic, as a senior engineering manager on a project to build a new greenfield sugar factory for Mars Inc. just outside Prague. Jo identified local suppliers, negotiated deals and recruited and trained local personnel – often in ungrammatical Czech! The factory’s product complexity triggered Jo’s interest in supply chain issues and she developed her role to include improving pack profitability through influencing eight different marketing units. She also ran the inbound packaging supply chain for a time.
On her return to the UK in 2000 Jo moved into Mars’ Consolidated European Logistics Service, responsible for both logistics procurement and network design. The team she was part of was pan-European and had responsibility across all the Mars businesses: from full trucks of Petfood to case deliveries of vending machine cups. From 2000 to 2006 Jo was a major contributor to the transformation of Mars’ outbound network to make it fit for future, particularly in relation to trade pressures such as 7 day ordering and reduced lead times. During this period she was also responsible for the procurement and development of a wide range of logistics services, initially leading a UK based team and then a Euopean team of buyers, managing tenders and developing procurement strategy.
In 2006 Jo left Mars to join the Supply Chain Design Company as a director and lead consultant. Over the next two years she led a wide range of projects in the FMCG, aviation, food and retail sectors and including network design, market reviews and major strategy development projects. On two of these projects she joined forces with Ruth Waring and Labyrinth; Ruth and Jo got on so well that they persuaded their fellow directors to merge the two businesses!
Jo Godsmark
Director
Career Timeline
1990
Graduated from Cambridge University
1990
Mars Confectionery
2006
Supply Chain Design Company
2008
Labyrinth Logistics