Seattle Chocolate with Jean Thompson

Jean Thompson did not plan to run a chocolate company.

She just couldn’t let it die.

Jean was an early investor in Seattle Chocolate when an earthquake destroyed the building the company was renting.

No earthquake insurance.
Broken machinery.
A condemned building.
A business that might not survive.

So she stepped in. Not because she had a grand plan.Because she loved the brand and didn’t want to watch it disappear. That decision turned into a 23-year journey as CEO.

What started as “maybe I can help 10 or 20 hours a week” became a full reinvention of a great chocolate company.

Jean rebuilt the team.
Learned manufacturing in real time.
Figured out cash flow the hard way.
And eventually turned Seattle Chocolate into a profitable, nationally distributed brand.

But the part I loved most? She didn’t stop evolving it.

Seattle Chocolate became Maeve — a bold, colorful, woman-owned brand named after an Irish warrior queen. A risky move for a 35-year-old company. And it also turned out to be the right one.

Because sometimes a brand doesn’t need to walk away from its past. It just needs to walk toward a bigger future.

And Jean’s story is such a good reminder: You don’t always need to know exactly where you’re going at the beginning. Sometimes you just need to care enough not to walk away.

Jean is bold, direct, and refreshingly honest about what it really takes to build—and rebuild—a brand. I came away from this conversation reminded that great companies aren't built by people who never doubt themselves. They're built by people who keep going anyway.