Meet The Three Oceania Finalists Of The Cartier Women’s Initiative

Ahead of this week’s glittering awards in Paris, we meet the finalists from Downunder.

Following on from last month’s announcement of the 33 fellows from around the globe who make up this year’s finalists for Cartier’s annual Cartier Women’s Initiative, we take a closer look at the three changemakers leading the Oceania contingent: Lily Dempster of tech start-up One Small Step, Lina Xu of healthcare digital platform Telecare, and Ingrid Sealey of education management provider Teach Well.

Celebrating female entrepreneurs and women-led businesses creating sustainable social and environmental impact around the world, the Initiative has provided essential support to 298 women impact entrepreneurs since it launched in 2006.

This year’s diverse candidates hail from 23 countries and have all created successful market-based solutions to global challenges in sectors as diverse as healthcare, education, food, and climate solutions, to name just a few.

The initiative, now in its 17th year and headed by global programme director Wingee Sampaio since 2019, is focusing on this year’s theme ‘Forces for Good’.

“Just via our engagement in this work engaging with women impact entrepreneurs from around the world, we are able to unite many key supporters in their respective eco-systems towards this cause,” Wingee tells Viva.

“The last phase of our initiative was focused around the idea of ‘the ripple effect’ — creating change in their respective communities — and now we really want to gather this community of 750 people for forces for good across different types of organisations, regardless of whether you’re an entrepreneur or an investor.

“In the past 12 months, we started a new programme in our work called the reciprocity ring, where we would match the supporters and the entrepreneurs on what we call ‘ask and offers’, which allows people to come and ask what they need help with. People don’t ask enough for help, and by hosting these sessions, we were able to have 130 offers and asks across the community — these are actual instances when someone needed help and someone was able to help. This is the power of community and how we are trying to facilitate real action together.”

Lily Dempster, founder and CEO of tech start-up One Small Step

One Small Step is helping society to rapidly decarbonise with an app that helps anyone achieve net zero emissions through lifestyle changes.

How does it feel to be one of this year’s fellows?

It feels wonderful and I feel privileged to be among such great company. There are women from all around the world here who are doing incredible things. I find it very inspiring, and I feel lucky to be counted among this cohort.

I also think it’s really great to be spotlighting women business owners as we know there’s a massive gender discrepancy in the allocation of venture capital funding — something like three per cent of venture funding goes to all-women-founded businesses, so giving women this platform through Cartier Women’s Initiative hopefully increases the visibility and perceived credibility of some fantastic female-led start-ups, and I think that’s a great thing for the start-up sector.

One Small Step has made some positive changes since its launch. What are some of the things you are most proud of having achieved so far?

I’m really proud of the fact that One Small Step’s free five-star rated mobile app genuinely supports people to make lifestyle changes that dramatically reduce carbon emissions. Our typical user can reduce their emissions by 56 per cent and save over $4600 a year by completing their own personalised climate action plan in the app. We already have over 70,000 downloads and together our community has saved carbon emissions equivalent to planting 130,000 trees.

Plus, our users have collectively shifted over $6 million away from banks and retirement income funds, investing in new fossil fuel projects and shifting their money into green finance institutions through our green finance programmes.

We’ve also had tens of thousands of users make changes to their lifestyles and homes to be more sustainable, doing things like cycling to work, eating more plant-based meals, swapping their lights for LEDs, installing rooftop solar, and shifting to ethical fashion (which means buying less, buying secondhand, and supporting bonafide circular economy brands).

Many brands and businesses we cover in the fashion, beauty and lifestyle space are guilty of greenwashing. What key tips and advice do you have for consumers when it comes to looking out for greenwashing in 2023?

I think a key thing you can do is go to the brand’s website and look at their website section on sustainability. If they are saying they are carbon neutral or have net zero emissions, then look at what this claim is based on. Is it entirely through carbon offsets? Do they say what kind?

If so, that’s a start, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they are super-sustainable or climate-friendly since offsets are very cheap and range in quality and rigour. Offsets also don’t actually support system change — they help companies continue on with business as usual while continuing to pollute and not make deeper changes.

If brands are serious about incorporating circular economy principles and reducing both their climate impact and environmental impact, you want to see plenty of evidence on their website that they’ve made changes to their supply chains, energy sources, shipping and manufacturing.

For example, for a fashion brand, is their entire brand using low-emissions and low-resource-usage natural textiles without a lot of chemical treatment and dyes, or is it just a specific collection of clothes with an eco-friendly label? Do they have any circular economy principles built into their products’ life cycle? How are they accounting for and minimising the waste their brand creates? Are they releasing a tonne of new garments every season that are cheap, or are they building quality pieces that last?

You can also look at their rankings on great sites like Good on You, which assess the environmental and labour standard credentials of fashion brands. Governments are starting to crack down on greenwashing claims, so hopefully, it will all become a bit easier for consumers to navigate in the next few years and it won’t be on the individual consumer to spend so much time doing research.

Lina Xu, co-founder and COO at Telecare Australia

Telecare is one of Australia’s largest telehealth clinics, providing access to more than 100 specialists and allied health professionals covering over 30 specialties (equivalent to a major Australian hospital), with an average patient wait time of one to three weeks.

How does it feel to be one of this year’s fellows?

This has been a career-highlight moment, a true game-changer in my entrepreneurial journey. I am thrilled about this opportunity as a 2023 fellow for the Cartier Women’s Initiative. It is a great honour to be chosen for this global entrepreneurship programme that supports and empowers women changemakers who are creating innovative and socially responsible businesses.

Throughout the 16 years of continuous effort, Cartier Women’s Initiative has established a unique space and community for impact women entrepreneurs to manifest the unbelievable into the tangible and break glass ceilings to pursue gender equality in socially impactful innovations and venture building.

Their vision resonates with my own in a profound way, and their carefully designed coaching, due diligence, pitching and PR programmes throughout the 12-month period really pushed me outside of my comfort zone to break through to a whole new level of leadership to amplify our impacts.

Where does your passion for helping others come from?

My humble upbringing in a rural town in China and suffering from the family tragedy of losing my father due to a neurological disease when I was 13 years old reshaped my life path. Since then I have been fortunate enough to survive and thrive from generous help and support from many people from different walks of life. Helping others has been a natural and intuitive choice for me, as I understand every little kind gesture can be life-changing for others.

Back in 2019, six months before Covid, as a new immigrant and a new mom with two young children, the desire to break through and restore my confidence pushed me to start this venture.

Back then, I was adapting to life as a new mother and feeling disconnected from a society I found baffling. My husband, co-founder of Telecare, and I decided to start a venture using technology to transform healthcare delivery, with the shared mission that healthcare is a human right.

What were some of the challenges you faced as a healthcare provider during the pandemic, and how have you worked to overcome these obstacles?

For a virtual telehealth specialist care provider, the Covid pandemic has been an unprecedented accelerator and catalyst for the sector. Telecare was founded six months before the pandemic; we were obviously unprepared for the sudden opportunity and had to fast-track a lot of our operational upgrades and technological developments to catch up with demand.

The legislators in Australia quickly responded to the pandemic, which provided a much more favourable regulatory and monetary environment to roll out our specialist telehealth services. In addition, the widespread adoption and acceptance of digital health and virtual models of care in both public and private healthcare sectors have given us tremendous opportunities to expand our services by forming meaningful partnerships, even with public hospitals.

The pandemic, particularly the lengthy and strict lockdown period in Melbourne, did present a challenge to us in terms of recruiting new staff, onboarding and training the new team members, just like any other company. We had to swiftly develop remote training, supervision, and team-building processes and support software and systems to support remote operations. All sales and engagements had to be switched to virtual, which helped cut down the associated cost compared with pre-Covid activities.

Ingrid Sealey, founder and director of education management provider Teach Well

Teach Well improves educational outcomes for Australian students with high-impact training for teachers and school leaders.

How does it feel to be one of this year’s fellows?

I feel deeply honoured to be a 2023 fellow. The fellows are all amazing women working on life-changing initiatives, addressing some of our most pressing global problems — to be alongside them is awe-inspiring. And I’m so proud to see the efforts of our incredible team recognised on a global platform.

Where does your passion for helping others come from?

I’ve been the beneficiary of amazing teaching in my life. I’ve had so many people invest in me as a person so I can follow my hopes and dreams. I spent a good part of my childhood travelling seven hours each way on a bus for cello lessons. My teachers inspired me to want to be the best musician I could be and it shaped me as a person.

When teaching works well, there is something truly magical that happens for both the teacher and the student, and it opens up possibilities that can transform lives.

Teachers are an integral part of the makeup of any society. What advice do you have for other women-led businesses in the education sector trying to navigate teaching in 2023 and beyond?

Empowering our young people with the knowledge and skills they need to follow their aspirations is a huge endeavour — it’s decades of investment for millions of children. There are no magic bullets but with many great organisations working together, it really is possible to make a profound difference.

For anyone interested in applying for the 2024 Cartier Women’s Initiative, the call for applications is now open and ends on June 30, 2023, at 6pm CEST.

Visit Cartierwomensinitiative.com. For more information, and for a full, detailed list of entry criteria requirements, read more here.