Tessa Clarke

Why you should listen

Tessa Clarke's childhood was spent on her parents' farm in the UK. As a result of this rural upbringing, she developed a keen appreciation for the value of hard work and the planet we live on, with a strong aversion to waste of all kinds. She studied social and political sciences at Cambridge University and earned an MBA at Stanford University before taking on a variety of leadership positions in digital businesses. Clarke is the cofounder of Olio, an app that connects people to their local community so that surplus household items like toiletries, food and clothes can be given away, rather than thrown away, and everyday things can be lent and borrowed, instead of bought brand new. Olio exists to combat the throwaway culture at scale and has grown its community to more than six million people (and 50,000 trained volunteers) so far. Clarke is passionate about the sharing economy as a solution for a sustainable world and about "profit with purpose" as the next business paradigm.