When passion meets purpose: How my professional leaps got me to where I am today

From an early age I discovered why I was put on this planet. I can remember cleaning up garbage in parks and rivers in my community, singing at care homes with my girl scout group and cooking at soup kitchens – really taking small steps to provide a positive impact. Ultimately there are countless moments where I was able to promote the power of good. Recently I had one of those moments where you get that tingle in your skin which raises the hair on your arms a bit – that feeling where you are struck with tremendous purpose and where your inner self speaks up and says this is really where you were meant to be. To get to where I am today, it would only be right to take a little step back in my journey.

In 2010, on my path to promote the power of good, I raised my personal bar to make a bigger step change by entering the world of solar in the UK. It was a phenomenal ride helping drive the installation of tens of thousands of solar systems in 4 years working with a few serial entrepreneurs – Sue Welland, Bill Sneyd and Daniel Green and then joining an amazing co-founding pair – Toby Ferenczi and Toby Darbyshire to design and launch the first retail solar proposition at IKEA from scratch and roll it out in the UK, Netherlands and Switzerland.

When I moved to Amsterdam 3 years ago I was on the hunt for startup and sustainability opportunities. I ended up attending the Rockstart Smart Energy Demo day and presented myself as the solar lady and was also put in touch with Kim Oreskovic, Rockstart mentor, through a mutual friend in London. Kim knew the startup ecosystem extremely well. I learnt that when you meet the right people in a new city you can move extremely fast finding your way to continue on your purpose.

Being in the Netherlands I feel strongly connected to the country’s mission as they are aiming to be fully circular by 2050. However I questioned how many other citizens really understood what the circular economy means and how they can make a difference.

Promoting the power of good through Antler

In January I recently joined Antler to help turn exceptional individuals into great founders of the next wave of tech companies. At the end of last year I started to ask myself why I get up everyday. For the past few years I was leading the marketing charge at EV charging solution provider, NewMotion, but was looking to build something from scratch again as well as supporting multiple initiatives to make a bigger impact on the world. What’s great about being a part of Antler is that I now have the opportunity to promote the power of good for many companies that will be birthed out of the Antler Amsterdam program starting in May. Thankfully I also have Kim Oreskovic by my side who is now Partner at Antler Netherlands.

With the Circular Economy being such a hot topic, it was natural to host an event to help showcase to entrepreneurial minds where to start when thinking about circular or sustainability.

I was inspired by what was happening in an abandoned swimming pool space in Rotterdam now transformed into BlueCity which is helping sustainable entrepreneurs grow from intention to impact. Lars Crama took the opportunity to talk us through a whole host of examples, however there was one story which helped clearly validate that there are many ways to look at how to connect a variety of waste streams. Here is one that stuck with me:

The coffee-waste that is produced by Aloha Bar-Restaurant on the roof of BlueCity serves as nutritious soil for the mushrooms of RotterZwam. The carbon dioxide that is released in the process is used by Spireaux for the creation of Spirulina, and in BlueCity Lab mycelium is used to develop packaging materials. The mushrooms grown by RotterZwam are used in bitterballen provided on the menu of Aloha.

By looking at all of the re-use of waste through this one example, it all became exceptionally clear on the links. Probably for me the best example of circular entrepreneurship I had learned about in a while. However, I walked away from the event pondering about the challenges of circular economy awareness and the debate from event participants about moving the bar on seeing more initiatives like this. Progress is slow as we still see the debate on circular economy implementation going round in circles (no pun intended). Different stakeholders in the mix from government to business bring in complexities as it is of course a very broad subject linking to complex value chains. However the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals are helping bridge the gap to create a blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all.

The importance of awareness and education for encouraging circular economy change

Many tend to think everyone will easily get the benefits of sustainable actions. However over the past 9 years of my professional life in sustainability, trying to change people’s behaviour to switch to something better for the planet is one of the biggest challenges. We are all creatures of habit and it takes a lot for us to make even a small change in our everyday. Overall awareness on bringing conscious consumerism is out there but equally everyone in their professional lives should also understand how to be a smarter professional to ensure we continue to create new business models with a positive impact.

This is really why I joined Antler. I couldn’t have asked for a better way to combine my passion for startups helping solve the world’s toughest problems with my purpose for being on this planet.