SUSTAINABILITY ENTREPRENEURS STEAL THE SHOW AT VEUVE CLICQUOT AWARDS
Tessa Clarke, co-founder of Olio and Karen Scofield Seal, founder of OCEANIUM are the winners of The 2023 Bold Woman Awards.
It’s been so inspiring to hear that the winners of Veuve Clicquot’s Bold Woman and Bold Future Awards are both sustainability entrepreneurs - exactly the kind of women we need to be recognising and celebrating right now!
The Bold Woman Award went to Tessa Clarke, co-founder and CEO of food-sharing app Olio, which she created in 2015 to tackle food waste. Since its inception, Olio has grown rapidly, with more than seven million global users plus partnerships with major food retailers including Tesco, Iceland and Amazon Fresh. The app has so far saved more than 100 million portions of food going to waste; created communities of food-sharers worldwide, plus brought together 86,000 ‘food hero’ volunteers who rescue and redistribute food across communities.
The judging panel, which included Kristina Blahnik, CEO of Manolo Blahnik, and Sian Westerman, co-chair at British Fashion Council Trust, praised Clarke’s elegantly simple solution to an appalling issue. On being the 51st woman to win the prestigious award, Clarke said: ‘The Bold Woman Award celebrates a daring attitude to business, reinventing tradition and an ethical approach to business, all qualities I greatly admire and try to embody in my work. I started Olio because I wanted to help solve one of the world’s largest problems and it’s great to see this has resonated with so many people.’
Karen Scofield Seal, CEO and founder of OCEANIUM, took home the Bold Future Award, which celebrates up-and-coming female leaders. OCEANIUM harnesses the benefits of seaweed to develop bioactive ingredients for health and cosmetics, food ingredients and materials for textiles and packaging and judges were impressed with her commitment to delivering impact within her own business and for creating systemic change. Despite being in its early stages OCEANIUM has already raised more than $10 million from ocean impact funds including World Wildlife Fund.“We are a purpose-led organisation and we truly believe in the power of seaweed to improve the health of people and our planet,” said Scofield Seal. “I’m grateful that our work is being recognised with this prestigious award which will highlight the potential that OCEANIUM has to help shape our future.”
The Veuve Clicquot International Barometer surveyed 48,000 women across 24 countries and found that 47% of women believe that building a business is riskier for a woman than for a man, while 42% believe they must act more like men to succeed professionally. Nearly half of female ‘wantrepreneurs’ believe funding is less available to them than to their male counterparts.
A huge 92% of wantrepreneurs also said they are inspired by female entrepreneurs; a key driver behind the launch of the Bold Open Data Base - Veuve Clicquot’s most recent innovation. A powerful solution for raising the visibility of women entrepreneurs, the Bold Open Data Base allows women from across the globe to create their own profile, making them visible to their peers while enabling them to benefit from being part of the entrepreneurial, economic, social, and financial ecosystem, regardless of the scale of business they head up. By promoting women entrepreneurs in this way, Veuve Clicquot hopes to facilitate greater access to funding, further the development of networks and ultimately fuel self-belief.
‘I’d love to see more female-led businesses and I hope I can inspire others to be brave, audacious and follow their passion,’ commented Scofield Seal, while Clarke agreed that she hoped to ‘continue to inspire the next generation of game-changing, bold female entrepreneurs.’
A huge congratulations to both of you and here’s to the next generation of female entrepreneurs working towards a more sustainable future.