We detect a pattern of three-year cycles emerging, but the Chamber can rest easy, she's enjoying her role far too much to want to be anywhere else, people are her speciality.
"My job is essentially to bring in new members, retain the present ones and liaise between the chamber and its members, so I get to meet an amazing lot of people, make contacts in the business world and see the good side of business by networking and connecting."
Putting that into a nutshell Jo (as she's generally known) defines the perk of her role as attending a lot of functions, a plus for someone as sociable as she is.
It's a trait she's inherited from her father, Mike Keefe, whose hospitality to others Our People featured on May 14, 2010.
But Jo's life hasn't been all fun times, her mother, Jean, died when her she was 14, her brother, David 7.
Breast cancer claimed Jean Keefe's life after she was misdiagnosed as being cancer free; her case went to the Medical Council and was upheld.
Talking about losing her mother so young reduces Jo to tears, we apologise, but she insists she wants to talk about that terrible time, not for her sake but for today's teens going through a similar trauma.
"I would say to any teenager in that situation to make the most of your time with your terminally ill parents. Now that I am an adult, a mother myself, I realise I used to do a lot of moaning, was snappy and resentful because going to visit her got in the way of other activities, now I wish I had cherished those moments more."
The visits were to see her mother at her grandparents' home across town.
"I now know she went there because she didn't want us to see her deteriorating, I feel very sorry for my brother, he doesn't have the memories of her that I do."
Because her mother's cancer was of the hereditary type Jo has annual mammograms.
"Mum died when she was 39, I'm only a few years away from that."
She worries about her own daughter's chances of carrying the same rogue cells.
"I'm undertaking genetic testing, it's a hard process, cancer is just horrid."
Being a mother drew Jo into the international media spotlight a year or so ago, not for her parenting skills or her quest to help eradicate cancer, but because of her now 4-year-old daughter's name.
It's Isis, regardless of the brickbats that Jo's copped she wouldn't change it, despite a Sydney girl with the same name being bullied and savagely beaten because it was perceived she had links to radical Islamic militants.
"I've never come across anything like that here, Rotorua people are accepting people."
Jo's reasoning for giving her daughter the controversial name stretches back to her schooldays.
"When I was at John Paul College we went on a trip to Europe and Egypt, I had been obsessed with Egyptology since I was a small child, when we went to Egypt it confirmed to me that in their mythology Isis was their most respected goddess."
Isis' name isn't the only time Jo Keefe's own made headlines. Between the ages of 11 and 16 she was a Bay of Plenty and Eastern District rep tennis player, her on-court achievements frequently featuring in this newspaper.
"I loved tennis, picked up my first racquet at 5, then I just grew out of it, I guess it got in the way of me being a typical teenager, something I really needed to be after all the trauma of losing Mum."
She's had a couple of cracks at the game since.
"The skill's still there but not the fitness, I don't have the time to keep that up now."
We backtrack to Jo's flight attendant days, flying domestically and the trans-Tasman route.
"For me, the highlights were meeting people, the discount travel which went with the job and the wonderful friendships we developed with fellow crew members, you become part of a very tight-knit group."
If she tended to the needs of any particularly famous passengers Jo's forgotten, but one memory will never escape her, it's the time she spilt red wine over a business class passenger.
"It was a businessman and the plane hadn't even taken off, naturally he was not happy, super grumpy, but soda water did the [stain removal] trick, Qantas picked up his dry cleaning bill, he had a clean shirt with him and when he disembarked he said I'd treated him like a real professional - that was a huge relief."
Jo would have continued her flying career a lot longer if a burst eardrum when she was 12 hadn't come back to haunt her, affecting her ability to cope with the pressure build-up repeated take-offs and landings caused.
"I was medically grounded for three months but it didn't improve so I had to give that great job away."
With her Chamber career giving her such an intimate knowledge of Rotorua's business world we ask is it simply hype, spin to claim after its lengthy stagnation, the sector's booming.
"Business here is very positive, thriving, there are so many great plans in the pipeline I can't wait for the next two years to go by to see the developments that will come to fruition."
JOANNE KEEFE
Born: Wellington, 1981.
Education: St Mary's Primary and John Paul College (both Rotorua).
Family: Daughter Isis, father Mike and stepmother Heather (nee Lavery), brother David.
Interests: "My daughter's number one". Sport, swimming. "Going to Tolaga Bay every summer to visit my mother's family." "Attending events." Shopping, politics, reading (on line), cooking.
Iwi affiliations: Ngati Whakaue, Ngati Kahungunu, Ngati Whare, Ngati Porou.
Self analysis: "I have to work on being positive about myself."
Personal philosophy: Decide, commit, succeed."
