Jessica Huie MBE is the founder of Color blind Cards and JH Public Relations. She became a mother at 17, an experience that gave her the drive to build a career, provide for her daughter and, eventually, create two award-winning businesses. After working in public relations and journalism at the top of the British media, she launched the greeting-card brand Color blind Cards and her own agency, JH Public Relations. She was awarded an MBE in 2014 for services to entrepreneurship.

Her story is one of spotting a gap in the market and backing yourself to fill it. For women founders in the UK today, it is also a practical example of how lived experience can become a competitive advantage.

Spotting the gap on Oxford Street

“I started Color blind Cards when I was working full time in media, enjoying a really successful career in public relations and journalism,” Jessica recalls. “I was looking for a card for my daughter Monet, who was seven at the time. She was going through a stage, as many little girls do, where she hated her hair and seemed uncomfortable in her own skin, so I went looking for a greeting card that would subtly reinforce her sense of identity and make her feel like a princess.”

This was 2007… there was a complete absence of cards featuring black, mixed-race and Asian people.

On her lunch break she scoured Oxford Street for a card showing a brown princess or a child who looked like Monet. “I checked every department store, every card and gift shop and noticed a complete absence of anything representative of the fact that we live in one of the most multicultural cities in the world,” she says. “On a social level it seemed wrong, and on a commercial level it seemed like a massive oversight, particularly when the mixed-race ethnic group is the fastest-growing group in this country. I am quite an impulsive person by nature and in that moment I decided to be the person to put multicultural cards on high-street shelves.”

The market opportunity in 2026

The 2021 Census from the Office for National Statistics showed that 18.3% of people in England and Wales identify with an ethnic minority background. The mixed or multiple ethnic groups population reached 2.7 million people, or 4.6% of the usual resident population. Despite that spending power, representation on the shelves was, and in many categories still is, limited.

Jessica’s success also sits against a broader shift in UK entrepreneurship. According to the 2023 Alison Rose Review of Female Entrepreneurship, there are around 1.6 million women-led businesses in the UK, contributing roughly £198 billion to the economy. The original 2019 Alison Rose Review estimated that advancing women’s entrepreneurship could add up to £250 billion to the UK economy. For context on the wider landscape, see Women in Business: Key UK Facts, and for the latest on whether those gaps are closing, see Rose Review Female Entrepreneurship: Progress or Promises?.

From 12 designs to the high street

Starting with just 12 designs, Jessica secured a trial with Clinton Cards, then the UK’s biggest card distributor, within seven months. “They trialled us in 10 stores initially and we exceeded the sales targets. They rolled us out to 100 branches of Clintons, which was a massive achievement, and I won a couple of business awards including the Daily Mail’s Enterprising Young Brit,” she says. “As a result of that article, which went online, a US distributor picked us up and very quickly we had a presence in a number of countries around the world, including Bermuda, Barbados and Washington.”

The momentum continued. Color blind Cards went on to be stocked by major British retailers including Tesco and Waitrose, as well as by Staples internationally, and the line built a following far beyond the UK.

Building JH Public Relations

Alongside Color blind Cards, Jessica remains passionate about PR. JH Public Relations grew organically out of her years of experience. “Starting the PR company was sort of an organic evolution from all of my years of experience working at the pinnacle of the British media,” she explains. The agency’s client list has ranged from high-profile names such as Hilary Devey, formerly of Dragons’ Den, to Deirdre Bounds, founder of i-to-i, through to smaller ventures. “The launch of our Start-up PR service has seen us begin to work with smaller businesses and less established entrepreneurs, which is wonderful,” she says.

Jessica savours the practical benefits of self-employment: “I don’t miss the nursery shows or the school assemblies anymore like I did when I was employed.” Yet juggling work with time for family remains a real challenge. “I work an average of 15 to 16 hour days and it is not unusual to get emails from me at 2 am, which is probably my most productive time,” she admits.

What Jessica Huie MBE teaches women founders

Despite her business achievements, graduating from university remains Jessica’s proudest personal milestone. “When I became pregnant my parents were devastated. My dad worked seven days a week while raising us to give myself and my siblings every opportunity, and naturally he was very disappointed. So when I graduated from university it was as much for him as for myself,” she says.

Color blind Cards is a business with a social purpose: it gives children access to positive images that resonate with and represent their own identity. Jessica is now also known as an author and speaker, using her platform to champion purpose-led business and greater diversity in entrepreneurship.

“Seeing Color blind in the shops for the very first time in the UK, having Color blind Cards go into South Africa in Johannesburg because of how recent apartheid was, to use our product to make a contribution to society, and of course that surreal invitation to a round table on enterprise with the Prime Minister at Number 10 Downing Street, were all massive highlights of my journey so far,” she concludes.

Practical steps for women founders

If Jessica’s story resonates, start by writing down the gaps you have noticed in your own market. Look for products or services that do not reflect the customers they claim to serve. Test your idea with a small trial, measure the results, and use that evidence to approach larger stockists or clients. If you need funding to get started, the Start Up Loans Female Founders scheme is one route worth exploring.

From a teenage mother searching Oxford Street for a card that reflected her daughter, to an MBE-winning entrepreneur with products on shelves around the world, Jessica Huie MBE’s story is a reminder that spotting a gap in the market and backing yourself to fill it can change both an industry and a life.