Speakers

Bel Jacobs

HowNow Magazine

beljacobs.com

Bel Jacobs is a former fashion editor of Metro and writer, influencer and communicator about the impact of the fashion industry on the climate emergency. She has spoken on panels at the Victoria & Albert Museum, Fashion Debates, Wolf & Badger, Reve en Vert, Future Fabrics Expo 2019 and Graduate Fashion Week 2019 and writes regularly for BBC Culture. She is one of the co-ordinators of Extinction Rebellion’s Fashion Action group and an active member of Animal Rebellion. She is founder editor of two websites beljacobs.com, about ethical fashion, and hownowmagazine.com, about positive initiatives in ethics and sustainability. 

Tai Ford

Retraced

Tai Ford joined Retraced in early 2019 as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence. In this role, Tai has been responsible for heading the Marketing and Communications teams, as well as finding innovative, sustainability-driven partners and clients through his role in business development efforts. Tai has over 7 years of experience as an international program manager for community development and social impact projects. He has a passion for empowering the end-consumers with insights about sustainability and ethics, and joined to retraced journey to help play a role in the industry-disrupting opportunity offered by supply chain transparency. Retraced is a tech-startup that uses blockchain technology to help fashion brands to build consumer trust by reliably collecting, tracing, analyzing and communicating insightful supply chain data.

Georgina Wilson-Powell

Pebble Magazine

Georgina is a passionate journalist and magazine editor who is using her 16 years in the media industry for global change. She founded pebble magazine 18 months ago as a stylish portal for sustainable living advice and positive stories that help inspire people to change the world. pebble covers everything from eco-travel to ethical fashion, plastic waste, food waste, permaculture, foraging, heritage crafts, yoga and pioneers trying to impact the planet. Georgina has become an expert in ethical fashion, plastic free living and eco-travel (after being a luxury travel journalist for many years) and also gives talks on aspects of living more sustainably without sacrificing your life.
She has moderated panels for BCorp, Flat Iron Square, Fashion Revolution Week events and Timber Festival and has been a panellist for talks on ethical fashion, zero waste, sustainable living and other related topics.

Sarah Montgomery

Everledger

Sarah works on building the China expansion of Tencent-backed technology company, Everledger. The company works closely with international organisations and global brands such World Economic Forum and Alexander McQueen to help create more visibility into the lifetime journey of items and share this information along the supply chain. Everledger’s technology platform allows end consumers to trust and understand the stories of the products they buy. By creating new layers of transparency around authenticity as well as the ethical, environmental and social impact of consumption, Everledger enables value and knowledge to be more fairly distributed along the supply chain. Sarah is also a Director of Young China Watchers, London, a global organisation bringing together thought-leaders, experts and individuals who are engaged with the most pressing issues emerging from China today.

Rachel Sheila Kan

Circular Earth

Rachel Sheila Kan has been in the commercial fashion industry as a designer / design manager for the last 20 years. She lectures on the subject of sustainability and business ethics at the UCA and has a guest lecture coming up at the LCF among other schools –  as well as numerous talks within the growing sustainable fashion community. Her consultancy Circular Earth brings  all of her skills, knowledge, contacts and networks together, using her industry and design background with her sustainable knowledge to advise companies on the best and most practical course of action towards sustainability whilst improving sales. Bringing together her connections in fabrics & supply chain with brands and design teams. Essentially she loves connecting people – and using her talents for this good she feels that this is the most impact that she can make alongside her influencing & educating side. https://www.circular-earth.co.uk

Jo Salter

Where does it come from?

Jo Salter founded awarding winning ethical clothing brand Where Does It Come From? in 2013 which has established transparent supply chains in India and Africa. With its goal to create ‘Kind Clothes that Tell Tales’ following no-compromise ethics and sustainability criteria, the brand has been featured in major press and magazines such as Forbes, The Guardian, Green Parent, Woman and Home and Juno. Jo is also an ethical business consultant – your ‘Ethical Business Buddy’, keynote speaker and writer. Her articles have been published in Juno, Metro UK, Huffington Post, Natural Mumma Magazine and more; and has featured on BBC Radio and TV talking about sustainability and ethical business.

Adam Siegel

Circular Fashion Pledge

As the former Senior Vice President of Sustainability, Innovation, & Research, Adam Siegel led the Retail Sustainability Initiative for RILA, the trade association for the largest U.S. retailers. In that role, Adam visited factories in China, Vietnam and elsewhere; led industry collaborations to improve retail stores’ energy efficiency, generate more renewable energy, reduce wastes, and address ethical production issues like conflict minerals, human trafficking, and worker safety; and built relationships with a range of NGOs and governmental agencies. Adam has devoted his career to addressing the biggest sustainability issues, leaving his full-time role last year to create new initiatives that can accelerate change, focusing on areas such as circular fashion (rental, repair, reuse, etc.). He is currently leading the 2020 Circular Fashion Pledge www.2020circularfashion.com

Tze Ching Yeung

Jake and Maya Kids

Refashion My Town

Tze Ching Yeung, founder of Jake and Maya Kids, is an expert in sustainable kids fashion with many years experience in developing new ideas and concepts in trying to reduce waste created in both pre- and post-consumer textiles. Tze Ching successfully launched a new concept on Kickstarter to help maximise the lifespan of kids clothing, including the introduction of growing and mending packs. This campaign was widely publicised, in both local press, as well as international press like CNN and Virgin Media. In 2019, Tze Ching launched Refashion My Town CIC, a community project in Wiltshire, with the aim to encourage young people to change their damaging fashion habits, through workshops and events. She also works closely with local schools and colleges, providing creative hands-on lectures and workshops, to help students explore ways to up-cycle their used clothing. Tze Ching regularly contributes to blogs and magazines.

Brian Iselin

slavefreetrade

6 years a soldier, 13 a Federal Agent, and 18 years of counter-slavery operations, Brian is Founder and CEO of Swiss NGO slavefreetrade. He is building the world’s first distributed human rights intelligence system, that features the experience and observations of every person in every workplace in organisations and their supply chains.

Clare Lissaman

Arthur & Henry

Clare Lissaman is the founder and director of Arthur & Henry, the UK’s first formal ethical menswear label producing high quality shirts from organic and Fairtrade cotton.In 2016, after over fifteen years as a consultant working on ethical and fair trade, she also co-founded Common Objective, the global sourcing and information network that enables fashion professionals to succeed in sustainable business, acting as its Director of Content & Impact.Clare has a firm belief that trade can and should benefit rather than harm people and planet.

Roberta Lee

Roberta Style Lee

Ethical Brand Directory

Roberta Lee is the founder of Roberta Style Lee an image consulting and styling business designed to help men and women to look good and feel good, from the inside out, but in a socially and environmentally conscious way. Known as London’s sustainable style expert, Roberta is also a prominent speaker within the ethical fashion circuit and runs interactive styling workshops. In addition to being a prominent speaker, she’s a business consultant and the founder of the Ethical Brand Directory. Founded in 2017, Ethical Brand Directory is a place where the style-conscious consumer can connect with brands that care. Today, the Ethical Brand Directory is a valuable network, providing events and training to enable the ethical brand community to thrive. Roberta’s directory is facilitating the transition of sustainable and ethical consumerism from a niche to the norm.

Kamilah Sanders

Greater Than Equal

Kamilah Sanders is Founder and CEO of Greater than Equal, an international consulting agency for social impact organizations whose focus is Making Impact Easy by engaging communities in culture, arts, and sustainable fashion initiatives. She is an award-winning professional with over 20 years of experience in marketing and retail fashion apparel. Specializing in sustainable development strategy, Kamilah is an advocate for sustainability and serves as a voice for disadvantaged populations. Kamilah also holds leadership positions on executive teams and boards of several nonprofit arts organizations based out of the United States.

Claire Couchman

Couchman Bespoke

Claire owner of Couchman Bespoke ethical tailors based in London. Providing tailoring skills to all through teaching, alterations and bespoke clothing. Dedicated to reducing the water usage and water pollution caused by the clothing industry. Couchman Bespoke is a social enterprise that has a Pay It Forward sewing skills scheme for all who wish to learn but are unable to afford the classes. With plans for a Craft Tearoom to help people in their mental health and from unwelcoming households. As a free place to escape, relax and learn a new skill if they wish. We are a business for good and give £1 in every £10 of profit towards projects giving back to people, planet and animals affected negatively by the clothing industry around the world.

Ruth MacGlip

ruthmacgilp.com

Ruth MacGilp is an ethical fashion blogger based in Edinburgh, UK, who is passionate about celebrating fast fashion alternatives, without compromising on style. She is also a freelance copywriter and digital marketer who works across social media, websites, email, PR and copy writing to help combine storytelling, selling and sustainability for purpose-driven brands.

Jo Godden

RubyMoon

Gym To Swim

Jo Godden is a passionate advocate of circular textiles manufacturing and was the first to use Econyl. In 2010 she founded RubyMoon Community Interest Company around the  ‘Circle of Impact’ business model which invests all of their profit into women entrepreneurs and the health of our oceans through their innovative Gym To Swim clothing.

Lee Klabin

Founder and Creative Director Lee Klabin

Lee is the Founder & Creative Director of the London- based fashion house “LEE KLABIN”. Her creations have been worn  by Sarah Jessica Parker, Lily Cole, and Dita Von Teese alongside many other fashion icons. She has been featured in British Vogue and was lauded in the fashion press as the “couture corset queen”.

She then took a seven year hiatus from the world of high-fashion to design her greatest creations to date: her three young children (with a little help from her husband!). 

Now, with the renewed practical perspective of a wife and mother, she has left behind the impossible glamour of “Sex and the City” and the ‘fashion over function’ attitude and put her creative energies into designing a new and better way for women to launch and celebrate the “Happily ever afters”.

Natalie Bennett

Baroness Bennett of
Manor Castle

Former Leader of
UK Green Party

Natalie Bennett became a Green member of the House of Lords last year, having been leader of the party from 2012-2016. In two decades as a journalist, she worked in her native Australia, Bangkok and London, finishing as editor of the Guardian Weekly. She’s unusual in politics in that her first degree was in science – agricultural science, and the focus of her work on the climate emergency is on food and farming. Natalie’s been a feminist since the age of five, and also worked extensively on women’s issues in Thailand. 

Tamsin
Lejeune

Ethical Fashion Forum

Tamsin Lejeune is the Founder of the Ethical Fashion Forum (EFF), the global industry body for sustainable fashion, and the CEO of the Ethical Fashion Group and Common Objective (CO) a platform that helps fashion professionals to do business better. For 15 years Tamsin has been building a global movement in the fashion industry, spanning 150 countries.  In 2015, Tamsin was named by Linked In as the most engaged woman in UK Fashion and Retail.

Kate Auguste

Mi Apparel

Kate Auguste, is the owner of mi apparel where you can Buy New, Buy Better with effortlessly cool sustainable ethical fashion brands for your conscious lifestyle. Having 20+ years of experience of the Fashion Industry Kate launched mi apparel in 2018. The brand is founded on the belief that Fashion is fun, beautiful, radical, a rebel, freedom, free speech. We just add layers of Ethnicity, Sustainability & Transparency. ‘I want fashion to change for the better, and to do this I opened mi apparel to showcase passionate brands & designers who believe in what they do for our people & our planet and I want you to have direct access to them’

Sven Segal

Po-zu Shoes

The Better Shoes Foundation

Sven is an award-winning entrepreneur who founded Po-Zu in 2006 with the vision of creating the world’s most sustainable footwear. Following earlier stints in architecture, stage design and photography, Sven started his career as a shoe designer after graduating from Cordwainers College in 1995. As part of the product development process Sven travelled the world to visit shoe factories and became disheartened by the manufacturing practices he found. The working conditions in many factories were exploitive and routinely used harmful chemicals like tanning agents and solvents-based glues. He resolved to challenge these practices by setting up his own brand to demonstrate how footwear can be created commercially without harm to people or the environment. Collaborations formed part of Sven’s pioneering work and include teaming up with iconic brands like Maharishi, Timberland and Star Wars. To celebrate Po-Zu’s 10^th anniversary, Sven founded the Better Shoes Foundation in 2016 with the aim to encourage the footwear industry to embrace better practices.   

Naimh Tuft

Fashion Revolution

Niamh has a background in fashion history and curation. She worked in fashion programming for the British Council for seven years where she led the International Fashion Showcase – a project which showcases and supports emerging designers from over 70 countries during London Fashion Week – and created strategic programmes such as Fashion DNA, which aims to support fashion ecosystems across the world to develop business support and creative opportunities for local designers.  Her work with the British Council encompassed architecture, design and fashion and intersected with disciplines across arts and culture. Prior to joining the British Council Niamh worked on a Centre for Sustainable Fashion project as a freelance curator, with the National Trust as a Young Curator and across a variety of cultural exhibitions and arts projects.

Charney Magri

Do Epic Good

Charney is described as being a beautiful blend of experience, talent and passion, now using her vast experience to lead the way in sustainability. Having spent most of her career as an international, award- winning photographer shooting fashion, beauty and advertising campaigns, in 2014 Charney began directing. Her passion to work with brands using their position of power as a force good lead her to co-direct her first docu-series, Catwalk to Creation. In 2018 Charney became a Partner for Do Epic Good, the sustainable practise of the conglomerate Do Epic Sh*t – a global boutique content creation and production agency. Charney has co-directed films for clients such as Uber, Aetna and Lenzing. She is an active public speaker and has been booked for speaking engagements globally including the United Nations General Assembly in New York September 2018 and again at SXSW 2019 where she curated, moderated and spoke on 3 panels for the United Nations. 

Madhu Vaishnav

Saheli Woman Project

Married at the age of 23, as a part of her marriage contract, Madhu was forbidden from working outside of the home.  Even though she had a masters degree in Indian History she was unable to seek a job. In an effort to enroll her son in a prestigious English medium academy, she met with the school director and was miraculously offered a position as a teacher. Although Madhu was a successful and beloved teacher, after four years of working in the school she shifted to work in the nonprofit sector as a social worker. For five years she mainly worked in the slum areas outside Jodhpur as a program coordinator with an American NGO. Her work spanned many areas and she was able to assist in supporting female sex workers, HIV/AIDS awareness, microfinance, skills training, and sex worker education. From her encounters with disadvantaged village women, Madhu decided to educate herself more on sustainable development and enrolled in a certificate course at the University of California Berkeley. With only $100, the first humanitarian workshops in the village were established. Madhu saw that every woman in the village owned a sewing machine as part of their marriage dowry.  She saw this as an opportunity to begin a skills training course as part of a fashion social enterprise. This came to be known as the Saheli Woman Project, which comes from the Hindi word for ‘female friend’.  

Sian Conway

Ethical Hour

Sian Conway is an ethical marketing strategist and business coach who helps big why business founders make an income and an impact for the Sustainable Development Goals. As Founder of #EthicalHour, the world’s first and largest online support network for people who want to live and work more ethically, she unites a community of over 57,000 changemakers online. to support each other and grow the ethical economy. Sian has worked all around the world on social impact projects and now provides marketing consultancy, training and mentoring to ethically-focused businesses and purpose-driven entrepreneurs. She was the UK’s Green & Eco Influencer of the Year 2018, one of the Social Entrepreneur Index’s top 29 UK social entrepreneurs in 2019 and was personally invited to be one of the UK Government’s Year of Green Action Ambassadors in recognition of her work to inspire individuals, communities and businesses to live more ethically and sustainably. 

Tamara Cincik

Fashion Roundtable

Tamara is a UCL graduate and has 20 years experience working in the fashion industry, as a fashion editor and brand consultant, as well as uniquely working in Parliament. As secretariat for the All Party Parliamentary Group for Textiles and Fashion, she is the bridge between fashion and policy.

Jenny Holloway

Fashion Enter Ltd.

Jenny Holloway has been working in the fashion industry for over twenty five years mostly in the private sector. Initially she was a buyer for Littlewoods, M&S and Principles for Women before opening her own label Retro. For almost ten years Jenny was Director of her successful business Retro UK Ltd which included retail boutiques, party plan, wholesaling to major retailers such as John Lewis, Principles and independents. Retro UK also had an excellent export business with key accounts in the Middle East and Europe. In 2000 Jenny commenced a consultancy business and was approached to be an Industry Advisor on Government funded initiatives. In March 06 Jenny incorporated Fashion Enter Ltd.

Sophie Slater

Birdsong

Co-founder and CEO of sustainable social enterprise fashion brand Birdsong. For independently-minded women who want their clothing to make a statement about their values, Birdsong delivers original wardrobe staples that are ethical and sustainable, made by expert women makers facing barriers to work in the UK. Established in 2014, Birdsong’s mission is to create ethical clothes that women feel good about wearing, and use our brand to inspire and implement change in the fashion industry.

Asha Buch

Khadi London

Asha grew up in a family of activist supporting India’s freedom movement under the guidance of Gandhi. She learnt to spin cotton at the age of about seven or eight, a skill that she has honed over the years and enjoys passing it on. Her skills as a teacher and spinner are inspiring a small but growing number of charkha (spinning wheel) enthusiast in London. Her presence in Khadi Initiative events helps ground conversations about ethics in textiles and fashion. 

Dani Ortega

Microfinance Opportunities

Dani is Microfinance Opportunities’ Project Manager. She is currently managing the Garment Worker Diaries project in Bangladesh which tracks the economic lives of 1,300 garment workers through weekly interviews. She works closely with upper management in the planning and development of strategy, manages client relations, and oversees and supervises the operations of the field team. She brings to her work at MFO xx years of project management experience and work as a consultant to start-ups seeking to become viable, sustainable companies. Dani is a registered attorney in the State of New York.  

Guy Stuart, Ph.D.

Microfinance Opportunities

Guy has been the Executive Director of Microfinance Opportunities since 2012, and affiliated with the organization since 2007. During this time he has led numerous research projects on the economic behavior of low-income individuals, households, and communities, as well as financial education projects. He has advised or led 17 Financial Diaries projects in 13 countries, collecting detailed information on how people manage their cash flows—their income, expenses, and use of financial tools. Currently he is leading the Garment Worker Diaries in Bangladesh, collecting weekly data from 1,300 workers. Guy was also recently co-principal investigator of the Embedded Education Project at Harvard, which focused on how to deliver education, including financial education, to marginalized populations through organizations and networks that do not have education as their primary purpose. Before becoming Executive Director of MFO, Guy was a Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School where he taught courses in management and microfinance for 13 years. He received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1994.

Elly

Take it Up Wear it Out

Elly is a professional costume maker who started an ethical and sustainable fashion blog, Take It Up Wear It Out, three years ago. Shocked by the negative effects of fast fashion on people and the planet she radically changed her shopping habits and started to use her skills to educate others on how to care for their clothes and mend or refashion the unloved pieces in their wardrobes. Elly also makes wearable textile art with an anti-fast fashion message, recycling old clothes and unwanted fabric and haberdashery to create couture garments with a story to tell. 

Laura Cave

Just Trade

BAFTS Fair Trade Network UK

Laura founded Just Trade in 2006, after working as a volunteer with fair trade jewellery projects in the shantytowns of Lima, Peru on several occasions since 1997. She studied jewellery at The School of Jewellery in Birmingham and at The Royal College of Art in London. Just Trade supply over 300 retail outlets in the UK and internationally, including independent boutiques and leading Museums and Galleries. They have designed and produced bespoke ranges for many high profile customers including The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, St Paul’s Cathedral and Tate in London, England. Just Trade now work with eight groups in South America and Asia, they are passionate about working directly with the producers and visit them every year to collaborate. Products are marketed on the strength of the design and craftsmanship. Every artisan is valued for who they are and encouraged to develop existing skills, learn new ones and then teach others.

Paola Masperi

Mayamiko

Paola Masperi is the founder of pioneering women empowerment charity Mayamiko Trust and lifestyle fashion brand Mayamiko The Label, sold in over 40 countries and counts Meghan Markle as a fan. With a background in International Development and Digital Innovation, Paola has a passion for crafts, traditions and the stories they tell about the people behind the products and their relationship with their natural environment, which comes from growing up in Italy surrounded by a strong culture of traditions, combined with a sense of curiosity about the future. Paola started Mayamiko Trust after working on several projects with women across a number of African countries, and the Label followed a few years later as a way to create dignified, creative and sustainable employment for women. The label now works with women’s initiatives across different countries such as Malawi, SriLanka, Peru, Afghanistan and Italy. An award winner for sustainability leadership, alongside Stella McCarney, Raeburn, Bottletops and others, Paola is always searching for collaborative ways to create responsibly, and ensure that her work has a positive impact along the entire supply chain by actively protecting the environment and creating safe, sustainable and creative jobs for women, as well as remaining a leader in innovation and sustainability. 

Susie Deadman

Susan MacFarlane

Sew Fabulous CIC

Susie Deadman (on the left)) – Sue and I launched Sew Fabulous in 2014 and opened the studio in Brighton Open Market.We have spent the last five years establishing and growing the organisation. I come from a background in arts education. Working for the last ten years as the educational workshops co-ordinator for Gladrags Community Costume Resource in Brighton and freelancing for other organisations including Towner Contemporary Art Gallery and numerous community groups and organisations. Currently I’m a part time student at Brighton University, studying for a masters in Inclusive Arts Practice. I love working in the studio, and being part of the wider community of The Open Market. My vision for Sew Fabulous is for us to grow to continually meet the demands of a changing world. To push harder for environmental awareness in the fashion and textile industry and to be a positive force for good in our community. Susan McFarlane (on the right) – I began sewing as a young mum in 1991 accessing a beginners sewing course at an adult learning centre. Since then I have worked as a freelance seamstress on a huge variety of projects, from fashion collections to theatre costumes and props and everything in between. I began teaching in 2012 and am PTTLS qualified to teach adults in the lifelong learning sector. Establishing the C.I.C with Susie in 2014 meant that we could offer low cost accessible learning to those that would benefit most from these creative and sustainable life changing skills. 

Christine Gent

Fashion Revolution

Christine Gent has worked in supply chain management, since 1986. Working with commercial companies Social Enterprises, UN bodies and Ethical Trade Development Manager at The Body Shop. Currently leads on producer engagement for Fashion Revolution, and is WFTO Fair Trade Expert for the UNHCR Made51 initiative working with refugee artisan supply chains. Christine is also Non Exec director People Tree Fair Trade Group, founder of Fairly Covered, and FAIR shop, CEO People Tree Foundation and steering committee Fair Trade International Symposium. 

Jenny Allan

Jenerous

Founder and designer, Jenny Allan, is a fashion designer who has worked in the fashion industry for many years, designing for the UK Highstreet. Born in the UK, Jenny has a degree in Fashion Design and Marketing, and has more recently been looking after her two young daughters while researching how to set up a sustainable fashion business. Jenny has had the dream of starting her own fashion label for many years, following a visit to India in 2007. She is excited to be bringing to life her vision of making a positive difference through ethical fashion. 

Sarah Jordan

Y.O.U. Underwear

Sarah is an award-winning entrepreneur who moved from the world of charities and digital technology to underwear in 2016, when a trip to Uganda led to her discovering some of the problems faced by women and children who didn’t have access to underwear. She returned determined to do something about it and, when combined with the discovery of the devastating impact of conventional cotton crops, this soon led to the creation of Y.O.U underwear. Y.O.U Underwear makes stylish organic cotton underwear for men and women. They use sustainable manufacturing processes, are committed to minimising waste and plastic, use ‘real models’ and don’t Photoshop their images to promote body confidence and positivity, and have a ‘buy one give two’ model to provide underwear to people who don’t have it. In the past couple of years Y.O.U has grown into a successful business, with significant growth rates,  worldwide customers and amazing reviews – and most importantly a positive impact. They have donated over 3,500 pairs of underwear to Smalls for All so far, with a target of 23,000 by 2023. Sarah is setting out to change the world one pair of pants at a time!

Medha Shah

Weaverbird

Medha Shah is a textile graduate from Indian Institute of Crafts & Design, Jaipur. She established WEAVERBIRD, a sustainable clothing brand and social enterprise to promote organic cotton and support marginalised farmers and weavers in the region of Gujarat. She serves as a textile researcher and consultant at various craft clusters across India. She conducts craft tours and workshops in Gujarat. She has been selected in the list of WE CAN INDIA TOP 26 Women Entrepreneurs. Her social enterprise WEAVERBIRD has also been awarded the Sadguru Gyanananda National Fellowship in 2017

Kapil Shah

Jattan Trust

Kapil Shah (M.Sc. in Plant Breeding and Genetics) born on 6^th Feb., 1963. He inherited values from his Gandhian parents. Academic training in the field of agriculture and respect for natural ecosystem including farm diversity made him a missionary to promote chemical-free sustainable farming since 1985, when he co-authored his first book “Sajiv Kheti” introducing the concept of agro-ecology in Gujarat. In spite of having a brilliant academic background (bagged 4 Gold Medals and topper of Gujarat Agricultural University at graduate level in 1984) and having offered jobs from multinational seeds companies, banks, fertilizer companies, Govt. institutes & universities; he started his career as a lecturer in a rural Gandhian naitaleem higher education institute from 1987 to 1992 with the conviction that his talent and skills should be utilized to develop rural India by benefiting farming community, conservation of natural resources and producing healthy food in sustainable way. At this institute he had started conservation of traditional seeds in 1988.

Catherine Price Williams

Ted & Bessie Alpaca

Catherine Price Williams started Ted & Bessie in 2016 with the mission to create luxury knitwear made entirely with the fleece from her own herd of alpacas. The company grew which meant more fleece was needed so she partnered with larger UK breeders who follow the same high standards of ethical and sustainable practice. Ted & Bessie now produce a collection of luxury knitwear and woven goods each season with their top priority being the welfare of their and their partners’ alpacas.

Sarah Divall

Hubbub

Sarah Divall is currently a creative partner at the environmental charity Hubbub. Driven by a motivation to bring an eclectic mix of people together to work towards a common goal, she was drawn to Hubbub’s inclusivity and its approach to communicating environmental issues. Sarah has been fronting the charities video channel since 2017 and has recently started a podcast What On Earth with radio’s Ross Buchannan investigating the past, present and future of environmental issues. Sarah has also been interviewed for major news channels including the BBC, Sky and ITV discussing current and pressing environmental issues.

Dominique Miller

Labour Behind the Label

Paying the price for fashion – championing workers’ rights in an unequal industry. Dominique Muller is the Policy Director at labour Behind the label – a small but mighty organisation based in the UK which campaigns for workers rights in the garment industry. LBL workers with grassroots partners all around the world, acting in solidarity with garment workers and targeting the actions of UK brands. Dominique previously worked at the Clean Clothes Campaign network as an international coordinator focusing on issues such as migrants, health and safety at work, network building, supply chains and corporate social responsibility. Before that Dominique was based in Hong Kong where she was, among other things, the Executive Director of the International trade Union Confederation (ITUC) Hong Kong Office and a researcher for Amnesty International. Dominique speaks Chinese and French and is currently based in York helping to coordinate the #PayUp campaign.