There’s no way to predict exactly how your life will pan out. You may have one plan, but fate could have something completely different in store – and someone who knows this is PR executive and greeting card entrepreneur Jessica Huie. From becoming a single mother, living in a hostel at age 17, to gaining work experience right here at Pride, to establishing an accomplished career in PR, she’s gone from strength to strength – and has even bagged an MBE to boot. On the verge of releasing a book about her life, Purpose, Jessica caught up with Pride to chat about her story.
So, Jessica, it’s been quite the career, and personal journey to where you are now – fill us in on exactly what’s happened?
Jessica Huie: Practically, my journey has been very hard work and quite transformative. After having my daughter, Monet (who’s 19 now), I decided to return to my studies – and my parents were invaluable, child-minding angels! And such, I have enjoyed and continue to enjoy an incredible career, which actually began at Pride Magazine back in 1999. I was a 19-year-old journalism undergraduate with an 18-month-old baby – but within three years I was heading up the launch of a men’s title, interviewing the likes of Mariah Carey and Nas!
I moved on to a role as PR consultant for the country’s most powerful publicist at the time, and learnt the ropes, built my experience and networked. Then, struck by the British high street’s lack of greeting cards that represented my daughter and my family and friends, something shifted. I became an accidental entrepreneur. I wanted to bring ethnic representation to mainstream shops… and so began the adventure of business ownership. I also set up my own PR firm, JHPR, in 2008, and worked with clients such as Kelly Rowland and Meghan Markle. Personally, my journey has been one of looking for home – a place where I felt valid, and enough. It took me almost two decades to discover that home, and the belonging I had been looking for, were within me all along.
Jessica, with daughter Monet, collecting her MBE
Why is now the perfect time to share your story?
JH: It was not a conscious decision to share my story; there was certainly no strategy. I began writing when my father was very ill, in the last days of his life.
He was a true inspiration to me – he came over to the UK from Jamaica in the Fifties and was the first non-white bus driver in Nottingham. He really made sure that my brothers and I were instilled with the strength to excel in life as the children of an immigrant in Britain. I picked up the pen as a coping mechanism – it was cathartic. And those writings, the most exposed, honest space I have ever experienced, evolved into my book, Purpose. It has been liberating and a challenging and beautiful process.
Since April’s magazine is themed on ‘Faith’, we’re curious – what significance does the word ‘faith’ have in your life?
JH: Faith has pretty much become central to my life since my father passed in 2016. Before then, I had a belief in God but didn’t feel that a God of any kind had any real involvement in my life or the outcomes of it. Today, there is no question in my mind that we are more than bodies and there is much more to life than that which we can see and touch.
What advice would you give people wanting to overcome a difficult situation?
JH: Back in 2012 I was in Kingston, Jamaica for Caribbean Fashion Week with journalist and friend Jasmine Dotiwala and the wonderful singer Estelle who had flown out to perform. I was having a difficult time with a situation in my personal life and I remember Estelle, without knowing anything about my situation, turning to me and saying: “You already know what to do.” She was right: I did. And in a short time I took the advice that was inside me all along waiting to be heard.
Sometimes the right thing to do can be the hardest thing. Be courageous with your life because it always turns out well in the end. Trust that.
Purpose: Find Your Truth and Embrace Your Calling by Jessica Huie is out now, £12.99, published by Hay House
