Three women entrepreneurs from Asia who are changing the world
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3 women entrepreneurs from Asia who are changing the globe
Come May 2, 8 women from around the world volition receive the Cartier Women's Initiative Award. CNA Luxury casts the spotlight on three Eastward Asian finalists.
Claire Yan, Yeon Jeong Cho and Saaya Nakayama – three of the finalists in the 2022 Cartier Women's Initiative Award. (Photo: Cartier)
23 Apr 2022 06:30AM (Updated: 04 Jul 2022 04:37PM)
Curiosity, audacity and a searing social mission.
That'southward what each of the 21 finalists of the Cartier Women's Initiative Award, at present in its 14th year, have in spades.
These female entrepreneurs run artistic, financially-feasible and impact-driven enterprises bent on finding solutions to aid the planet and its people. They're busting the status quo and revolutionising industries with businesses founded on unique premises and powered by a desire to give back.
In short, women with the balls to change the earth.
Afterward months of sifting through 2,900 applicants from 142 countries, the French luxury brand will be celebrating these 21 individuals at an awards ceremony in San Francisco on May 2.
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Of the 21 finalists, eight will be named laureates, winning their businesses U.s.a.$100,000 (Due south$135,700) in prize money while the rest will receive US$30,000.
All volition benefit from ane-to-one personalised mentoring, international professional networking opportunities, and a spot on an executive programme with INSEAD Business School, which Cartier has partnered along with management consulting firm, McKinsey & Company. The three companies founded the Initiative in 2006.
CNA Luxury spoke with the three finalists from East asia.
CLAIRE YAN, CHINA
FOUNDER OF COBBLER'Due south SUGGEST
Borne out of sheer frustration from damaging her heels in Shanghai'southward urban jungle and not being able to find a decent shoe repair service, Claire Yan founded Cobbler's Suggest in 2022 as an online leather goods repair service that helps reduce environmental waste while boosting income for artisanal cobblers.
A few clicks on its app and a personal delivery service will pick upward the customer's shoes and whisk them to a repair site in Shanghai's suburbs where a team of skilled shoe elves gear up to work saving them. One time completed, the shoes are paw-delivered back to the customer's door, with no stress and no fuss.
The business caters to wealthy Chinese and their beloved of luxury shoes, with brands sent to Cobbler's Suggest reading like a Christmas wishlist: Ferragamo, Jimmy Choo, Roger Vivier.
Information technology's a 21st century shoe repair business that'due south besides designed to elevate the humble cobbler – and their previously undervalued skills – equally respected craftsmen in their field.
"Cobblers are struggling to keep their small businesses live and cannot survive in large cities anymore," Yan explained via electronic mail. "And the irony is that those humble cobblers are needed to proceed the fancy leather goods in skilful condition, but these cobblers scattered effectually the city cannot win the trust from the customers with fancy leather goods."
"When they are constantly struggling to make ends meet, they have no time to ameliorate their skills and excel at craftsmanship. If this doesn't modify, I doubt the industry will survive," she added.
Cobbler'south Suggest is Yan's second business; the starting time was an advertising agency.
In 2018, the visitor launched a luxury bag repair service and is at present planning to abound its squad of artisans to extend its repair services to the textile industry.
By combining digital modernity with traditional craftsmanship, Yan wants to practise her part to help safeguard the livelihoods of these craftsmen while helping shoe owners prolong the lifespan of their cherished footwear, in the process helping to reduce ecology waste.
YEON JEONG CHO, SOUTH KOREA
FOUNDER OF SAY GLOBAL
When Yeon Jeong Cho start heard the thought of connecting senior citizens with Korean language learners from her co-founder, she immediately brutal in love with the pitch.
The former investment banker started SAY Global in 2022 as an easy-access online platform that matches students with a teacher in the form of a trained retiree, and learning takes place via 1-to-i video classes.
Having moved to the United States with her family when she was 11, the Korean national knows just too well how hard information technology is to acquire a new linguistic communication.
Another factor that prompted her to start the concern was witnessing the bigotry against retirees in the workforce, where employees are frequently "forced" into retirement in their 50s.
"The life expectancy in Korea is over 80 years. So for 30 years after retirement, seniors demand to find a fashion to stay financially stable and socially active," Cho observed.
"At that place are many older adults around me who are so bright, intelligent, experienced, and willing to contribute back to guild. This is why I was sure that the idea of building a bridge to connect Korean seniors with the younger generation, too equally with foreigners of different cultures, would be a success," she explained via e-mail.
For Cho, being selected equally a laureate and winning the prize money will allow the company to accelerate its growth by investing in product development to make its services more accessible to users beyond its electric current user base of operations.
"More customers means more jobs created for seniors," she said. "We are solving a huge social issue and we are gear up to take the company to the next level and grow as a global startup."
SAAYA NAKAYAMA, JAPAN
FOUNDER OF SHE INC.
After winning an entrepreneur bootcamp ii years in a row at elementary school, Saaya Nakayama was bitten by the entrepreneurial bug and went on to start her kickoff business even before graduating from university.
It was her years at secondary school, though, that inspired Nakayama's latest venture.
Attending a strict all-girls institution with old-fashioned ideas stoked in her a stiff sense of rebellion against the idea that "women are supposed to just be housewives".
Nakayama'southward called-for want to break out of those confines and escape that "trapped free energy" she felt growing up has given rise to SHE Inc., a Tokyo-based creative learning and co-working hub she set up with a co-founder in 2017.
The company offers a plan chosen SHElikes, which covers digital and creative skills-training in fields such as web blueprint, writing, editing, branding and due east-marketing, too every bit mentoring programmes and job placement services for a new generation of Japanese women – whether they're starting a business or building a freelance career – through an onsite subscription-based school.
"For cultural and social reasons, Japanese women are yet bound by former stereotypes and the selection between family and work," she explained.
Times are changing, however, and Nakayama is firmly on a mission to "create a world where every woman can be herself and smooth."
Her advice to other female entrepreneurs? "Continue reaching for the stars. Entrepreneurship is a series of hardships and then don't give up no matter how hard information technology feels or how hard the route. Keep believing in your dream and keep moving forward."
As for what'south next for this trailblazing CEO with a scorching mission, information technology's "to accept SHE Inc. to all the women of the world".
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Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/people/cartier-womens-initiative-awards-2019-239516
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