Food waste warrior and seaweed savant set to save the world – named top UK’s female entrepreneurs

Exceptional female entrepreneur, Tessa Clarke, has been announced as the winner of the 2023 Bold Woman Award by Veuve Clicquot, the longest-running international accolade honouring the most impressive women in business.

At an empowering award ceremony in London, Clarke collected the award, following in the footsteps of previous winners, including Professor Sarah Gilbert recognised in 2021 for her work leading the development of the University of Oxford’s COVID-19 vaccine, CEO of Selfridges Group, Anne Pitcher in 2020 and renowned architect Dame Zaha Hadid in 2013.

The ceremony was hosted at Veuve Clicquot’s Solaire Culture Exhibition, which shines a light on the 250 years of the House’s history with an immersive journey, featuring nine bold and renowned female artists including; Yayoi Kusama, Sheila Hicks and manga artist Moyoco Anno.

The 51st woman to be honoured with the award, Tessa Clarke was recognised due to her inspirational work creating food sharing app, Olio. The business has grown quickly since launching in 2015, with over 7 million using Olio and partnerships established with major food retailers including Tesco, Iceland and Amazon Fresh. Olio has already saved over 100 million portions of food from going to waste and has created communities of sharing globally. The Bold Woman Award celebrates innovation, audacious female leadership and entrepreneurism across the UK and the panel of judges praised Tessa’s elegantly simple solution to an appalling issue. They also highlighted her work connecting the community through Olio’s 86,000 Food Hero volunteers rescuing and redistributing food.

Karen Scofield Seal, CEO and founder of OCEANIUM, was awarded the Bold Future Award by Veuve Clicquot. The Future award celebrates up and coming female leaders of the future, and impact start-up OCEANIUM was honoured due to its trailblazing work harnessing the incredible benefits of seaweed to develop bioactive ingredients for health and cosmetics, food ingredients and innovative, seaweed-based materials for textiles and packaging. Despite being in its infancy, OCEANIUM has already raised over $10 million from ocean impact funds including World Wildlife Fund and Builders Vision. The Bold Woman Award judges were impressed by Karen’s commitment to delivering impact within her own business, the wider value chain and for systemic change in food, materials and production systems. As well as her ambition to enable the seaweed farming industry in the western hemisphere.

The Bold Woman Award is a modern evolution of Veuve Cliquot’s Business Woman Award, which has been running since 1972 and is the first and longest-running international accolade of its kind. The panel of judges look for women who emulate the qualities of Madame Clicquot, an original trailblazer who back in 1805 was known for her enterprising spirit, as well as her courage and determination necessary to accomplish her goals.

The award’s judging panel is comprised of a mixture of industry titans and networkers including Kristina Blahnik, CEO of Manolo Blahnik; Pip Jamieson, founder of The Dots; Sian Westerman, co-chair at British Fashion Council Trust; and Naomi Kerbel, former global head of TV and radio at Bloomberg.

The judges praised the winners for overcoming significant hurdles, some of which were highlighted in the Veuve Clicquot International Barometer. The study surveys 48,000 women globally across 24 countries and in the UK, almost half (47%) of women surveyed believe that building a business is riskier for a woman than for a man and a substantial 42% believe they must act more like men to succeed professionally. An even greater proportion of women (55%) feel they need to show more authority than male entrepreneurs to gain respect and female wantrepreneurs in particular agree (61%). In addition, nearly half of female wantrepreneurs also believe funding is less available to them than to their male counterparts.

Finding role models and mentors can be instrumental to female entrepreneurs, to inspire and guide them on their business journey. Two thirds of the women surveyed for the report believed that having a role model to look up to is an essential part of becoming a successful entrepreneur. This figure rose to nearly all female wantrepreneurs, with 92% stating that they are inspired by female entrepreneurs.

Tessa Clarke, co-founder and CEO of Olio and winner of the Bold Woman Award, said:
“It’s an absolute honour to receive this incredibly prestigious award and I’m truly humbled to be positioned alongside the previous winners. The Bold Woman Award celebrates a daring attitude to business, reinventing tradition and an ethical approach to business, all qualities I greatly admire and try to embody in my work. I started Olio because I wanted to help solve one of the world’s largest problems and it’s great to see this has resonated with so many people. We’ve hit some incredible milestones already, and I hope I can continue to inspire the next generation of game changing, Bold female entrepreneurs. “

Karen Scofield Seal, founder and CEO of OCEANIUM and winner of the Bold Future Award 2023 said: “The Veuve Clicquot Bold Future Award is an amazing recognition of the incredibly bright future we have at OCEANIUM. We are a purpose led organisation and we truly believe in the power of seaweed to improve the health of people and our planet. I’m grateful that our work is being recognised with this prestigious award and that will highlight the potential that OCEANIUM has to help shape our future. I’d love to see more female led businesses and I hope I can inspire others to be brave, audacious and follow their passion.”

Jean-Marc Gallot, President of Veuve Clicquot, commented: “The Veuve Clicquot Bold Woman Awards have been celebrating strong female entrepreneurs for over fifty years during which we have recognised women who have made a mark in history. Nominees are assessed across four key areas, from successfully reinventing traditions and demonstrating entrepreneurial daring, to championing better representation of female leaders and maintaining an ethical approach, and I’m delighted that this year’s winners are pushing boundaries with innovation and their ambition to achieve sustainable and societal impact.”