Hello andhHappy Monday from yet another Fast Horse newbie. My name is Jo Watson and I’m a new account director here. Actually, I feel like I’ve been here for ages already and I only started three weeks ago. But not in a bad way! A great way, in fact.

So, first of all. Have to say, don’t love writing about myself. You see, I’m British, and we can be a little reserved. Not uptight. Reserved.

I moved here from England with my boyfriend Steve (now husband) back in the late ’90s. We didn’t know anything about Minneapolis. Just that it was cold, it had quite a few lakes and that it was close to where the movie Fargo was filmed. We wanted a little American adventure and Steve had a job offer, so we packed in our jobs, boxed up all our belongings and moved to a shitty apartment in Uptown. 35th and Emerson near “the park,” which turned out to be a cemetery. Don’t rent in the dark.We moved here with every intention of moving to a more interesting U.S. city in a year or two. That photo is smugster Jo at Colle McVoy, imagining one of the cooler cities she’d move to. Used to hate it but kind of like it now. #ravagesoftime

Fast-forward 20 years, and we’re still here. Four houses, three kids (Ben, Avery and Immi), two dogs (Howard and Cocoa) and a hamster (Munchie) later.

Yes, it’s all the stuff you know about. Great lakes, park space, bike trails, restaurants, etc, etc. I really do love all of those things. But here’s why we stayed. We both started out at big agencies — Steve at Weber Shandwick and me at Colle McVoy. We worked hard and partied harder — basically spending all our time with our agency friends. And they’re still our friends today, more-than-worthy stand-ins for our family that are all the way across the pond.

Which brings me back to why I love being here. Back at an agency. I’ve had fun freelancing for the best part of the last decade while my little babies turned into gigantic beings, but it feels great to be back working alongside funny, smart, passionate people as part of the actual team. But let’s see how I feel in four weeks!