Jo Thomson has worked in international development for over 25 years with a consistent focus on accountability and effectiveness standards and good practice for NGOs. She has co-authored the Australian NGO Accreditation Standards and the ACFID Code of Conduct, is an Assessor of NGOs participating in the Australian Government Aid Program and is a CHS Auditor with the Humanitarian Quality Assurance Initiative (HQAI).

As an independent practitioner, Jo works on a range of initiatives including effectiveness standards and good practice, programme design, monitoring and evaluation, gender, child safeguarding, the prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse and NGO governance and operating standards. Jo co-founded Learning4Development in 2013, a consultancy social enterprise.