Jo Watson Hackl has been a corporate and securities attorney with Wyche, P.A in Greenville, SC for over 30 years, and first-chaired the registration of over $1 billion in securities.
Jo is a founding mentor of the NEXT/MIT Venture Mentor program. She was the first woman to serve as Chair of the Greenville Area Development Corporation and is Past President of the Greenville County Bar Association, Past President of the Greenville Professional Women’s Forum, Past Chair of the Community Foundation of Greenville, and Past Chair of the United Way Women’s Leadership Initiative. She is a Liberty Fellow, a Riley Fellow, and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. Jo serves as Mentor for the Liberty Fellowship program, for young professionals in the Chamber’s PULSE Pacesetter program, and for Yale Law School students. Jo has been recognized as a “Woman of Achievement” by the YWCA, received the Community Foundation’s Ruth Nicholson Award, the Peace Center’s Philanthropist of the Year Award, the Legal Service’s Richard Riley Pro Bono Award, the Chamber’s ATHENA award and the Greenville County Bar Association’s Tommy Thomason Award.
Jo currently serves on the Boards of Trustees of the Hollingsworth Foundation, the South Carolina Research Authority, the South Carolina Educational Television Endowment Foundation, and the Greenville Technical College Area Commission.
Jo is also a writer and founder of Outdoorosity.org, a free resource that provides information and inspiration about spending time in nature. Jo’s novel Smack Dab in the Middle of Maybe (Random House Children’s Books) is a Publisher’s Weekly bestseller and was awarded the Southern Book Prize.