Being shortlisted for the Veuve Clicquot Bold Woman Award makes you feel very special. It was quite surprising, because I’d put forward other women who I thought were really worthy, but hadn’t thought I’d be nominated myself.

I grew up in London, with wonderful parents, in a household full of love, care and hard work. My parents were very entrepreneurial, and very generous to their local community. I was four when my dad started Supreme Creations, so my entrepreneurship journey began over conversations at the dinner table.

I don’t have a background in fashion or design. I studied philosophy, politics and economics at university, which helped me understand the allocation of resources in the world, how policies are made, how institutions govern and how systems are built.

I thought I wanted to be a management consultant, but when the financial crash happened in 2008 I joined my father’s business, thinking I’d just be there for a few months.

My dad wasn’t very happy to have me involved in the company. It was kind of the opposite of traditional families where they expect people from their families to join the business. He thought I would be better off in a job in the City. I’d had that experience though – I’d done a lot of City internships, with Lehman, Deutsche Bank and my gap year at PwC. I sometimes think a three-year stint in accounting and getting a qualification would have actually been so useful.

“Being sustainable as a business saves money. It’s very business-positive. It helps the bottom line”

I learned a huge amount in those early days. How to pick up the phone, speak to a client, put samples in an envelope, decide what product works, working with the marketing director, understanding how digital marketing works – the everyday machinations of a business. I still deal with customers today. And I’m still learning, of course.

Entrepreneurship is so exciting. You don’t necessarily have to go down a corporate path to be successful. Understanding a business and all its elements is really intellectually stimulating.

I’m extremely privileged to have an exceptional set of managers around me. It’s an entire support system. It’s important to be challenged with innovation from young talent coming in, bursting with ideas. Can we do this? What about that?

I’m super proud of some of our headline partnerships and charities. We’ve raised millions of pounds for incredible organisations and worked very closely with brands, whether it’s helping Pret a Manger switch to sustainable cups or working with airports and duty-free operators to understand how to incentivise recycling. We also do a lot of work creating reusable packaging for the beauty industry.

Design and sustainability go hand in hand. Great product design ensures a person uses that product over and over again. And a sustainable design means it hasn’t created waste. The designer has thought about the robustness or end of life of the material.

Great design is strategic, not just a ‘nice to have’. It really can compel change. We saw that most during the pandemic when we had the number one most sought-after reusable face coverings. People could choose a plastic, throwaway mask or a blank fabric mask. They chose to put their money on beautiful prints, beautiful designs. Our product was highly rated in terms of product efficacy and got high-profile press across broadcast media. But it was the power of design that made that project successful.

I’m really lucky to work with some absolutely incredible designers. It’s so important to champion artists and creatives, because they view the world in a very special way and the way they execute that vision is very impressive.

A lot of our strength comes from owning most of our supply chain. We’ve always championed everyone along the supply chain, and that comes from a position of responsible leadership.

‘Ethical’ is quite a loaded term. And especially as a philosophy student, you ask: what is ethical? The word itself has to be unpacked. But when you think about it, it’s really about doing the right thing.

Being sustainable as a business saves money. It’s very business-positive. It helps the bottom line. It just depends on what time frame you’re assessing for that return on investment. For example, if you install sensors in your office, where the lights go on and off, the installation costs might be high at the start. But over time the cost savings on electricity will be brilliant.

Many businesses think they have to be B Corp certified – but you don’t even need to hire an ESG [environmental, social, governance] manager. ESG teams are great but they can become quite bureaucratic and stats-driven and that’s not the point. Just start somewhere, and you’ll see cost reductions. And when you’re cash-strapped, you’ll be doing sustainable things anyway.

“Speaking to someone who thinks in Excel is brilliant because they can start running the numbers, drill down and go into audit mode”

Don’t waste. Reuse. Plan ahead. Sustainability is often just about simple, old-fashioned principles. We manufacture our products in Pondicherry in south India, where we own our factory. Our clients have to decide whether to transport their goods via sea or air freight. Sea freight is 97–98% less carbon intensive than air freight but it does mean planning ahead, because sea shipping times are a lot slower than air.

My finance department is absolutely everything. We are such a creative business, and our core audience is a marketing director or a CEO who wants to think about a brand launch or a change in their packaging, which means a cold, hard look at the numbers. Speaking to someone who thinks in Excel is brilliant because they can start running the numbers, drill down and go into audit mode. 

I really love my weekly chats with finance managers, where they say, “We just need to look at this element of this cost.” And you think, “Wow, I’d never have thought about that.” They unlock lots of little niggly things that you need to keep your eye on.

I help run a charity called Wings of Hope, which helps young people decipher the world of work. And I run a flagship event called Speed Mentoring, now in its 13th year. We have about 30 to 40 different industry mentors, whether from tech or engineering or accounting or the media or arts. It shows young people how entrepreneurship can be such an exciting and desirable career path.

Nature inspires me. I’m most happy when I’m in a green space, under trees, with blossoms. I find my child’s school so inspiring too. You walk in and there’s so much positivity, so much art everywhere.

The most important lesson I’ve learned is to have humility and understand that no one knows everything. The second is to respect the person you’re communicating with, because they could have so much to offer. And the third is to work hard!

bagsofethics.org

For more resources visit the ICAS sustainability hub