Cartier Women's Initiative Announces The Winners Of Its 2024 Edition While Also Unveiling Details Of Its Program Next Year This year's theme "Forces for Good" reflected the program's ambition to foster a more just and equitable world, iterating the importance of collective action to deliver change, for good.

F or Shahira Yahia, co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Egypt-based Chitosan, being declared one of the winners of the 2024 Cartier Women's Initiative (CWI) was the culmination of a long-held dream- after all, the 30-year-old entrepreneur had been following this program since she was in high school. That said, this was the first time Yahia had applied to be a part of the program, and when asked why she hadn't applied to be a part of the program earlier in her entrepreneurial career (Chitosan was launched in 2018), she pointed to imposter syndrome as being a key barrier that she had to overcome.

Such feelings of self-doubt only add to the roadblocks that Yahia and other female founders like her often have to deal with as they make their way in the global business arena- plus, these difficulties get compounded if they operate in the social impact space. All of this points to the value of a program like the CWI, which the French Maison Cartier has been running since 2006. The annual program aims to drive change by empowering female-led social impact businesses, and the founders it selects as fellows gain not just global visibility and grant funding, but also access to a network consisting of everyone from academics to industry experts, all of whom are there to support and equip these women as they go along their entrepreneurial journeys.

This year's edition of the CWI saw 33 female impact entrepreneurs from around the world being declared as winners of the program and thereby gaining entry into this fellowship. They were announced at an awards ceremony held in May in Shenzhen, China, with winners being announced in 11 categories, which included nine regional awards, and two thematic awards, i.e. the Science and Technology Pioneer Award and the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award. The first, second, and third place winners in each category receive US$100,000, $60,000, and $30,000 in grant funding, respectively. Being part of the CWI Fellows community also grants them access to tailored mentoring and coaching, media visibility, networking opportunities, as well as educational courses from INSEAD, "the business school for the world."

Hosted by writer and gender equality champion Sandi Toksvig, this year's awards ceremony for the CWI also saw the appearance of Cartier President and CEO Cyrille Vigneron, supermodel, entrepreneur, and philanthropist, Karlie Kloss, and Olympic diving champion and advocate for public welfare and environmental protection, Guo Jingjing. It also featured a performance by the dance department of the Zhejiang Conservatory of Music, which echoed this year's theme of the Cartier Women's Initiative, "Forces for Good." The celebration also offered glimpses into the entrepreneurial journeys of the 2024 fellows, who are addressing some of the world's most pressing social and environmental challenges.

Cyrille Vigneron, CEO and President of Cartier (left) speaking at the Cartier Women's Initiative awards ceremony. Source: Cartier

In the MENA category, the first place winner was announced to be Salma Bougarrani, the co-founder of Morocco-based Green Watech, a platform that provides a soil-based filter system that treats domestic wastewater in rural communities so that it can be reused for agricultural irrigation. As it so happens, Bougarrani is the first Moroccan entrepreneur to be selected to be a part of the CWI, but she is hopeful that other founders from her nation will now feel inspired to follow in her footsteps. "I like to believe that I am a role model for women in Morocco," she said. "And this win actually reinforces this, because a lot of women would like to be in my position today, and it all feels just really rewarding."

The MENA region's winners also included Rania Gaafar, founder and CEO of Adva, who came in second place- her company helps self-employed and unbanked people in Egypt get quick financing by connecting them with financing institutions offering low-interest rate loans. In third place was the aforementioned Yahia, whose company, Chitosan, is an Egypt-based firm that empowers smallholder farmers to participate in the organic market, while also achieving higher income through new agricultural practices.

Commenting on the winners from the MENA region for this year, Sophie Doireau, CEO of Cartier Middle East, India, Africa, and Türkiye, said, in a statement, "Our region is home to an incredible wealth of diverse entrepreneurial talent, and the applications we receive from dynamic women-founded small businesses are always impressive. I am delighted to welcome this new cohort of regional fellows to the close-knit Cartier Women's Initiative community. Each of the fellows selected is unique in her own way, and all are passionate about leveraging businesses as a force for good. They are collectively transforming the sectors they operate in and creating lasting impact in their communities; I can't wait to see what they will achieve as part of the Initiative."

Salma Bougarrani, founder of Morocco-based Green Watech; Rania Gaafar, founder of Egypt-based Adva; and Shahira Yahia, founder of Egypt-based Chitosan. Source: Cartier

In the South Asia and Central Asia category, the winners included Ira Guha, founder of Asan, which aims to address "period poverty" with a reusable menstrual cup, Mansi Jain, founder of DigitalPaani, which aims to build digital management tools that protect natural water resources from contamination, and Marina Tran-Vu, founder of Vietnam-based EQUO, that offers sustainable and plastic-free dishware, cups, and crockery, among other things. In addition, the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion award was given to Akshita Sachdeva, co-founder of Trestle Labs, an enterprise that provides visually impaired people with access to education and employment through its Kibo device and app.

Meanwhile, the winners in the Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa category included Victoria Munguti, co-founder and CEO of Heptapay, a Rwanda-based app that facilitates low-cost international remittances into mobile money wallets in East Africa in under one minute, Jessica Long, co-founder of MAAD, a Senegal-based venture that connects brands with small retailers through an e-commerce platform, and Isabelle Kamariza, founder of Solid'Africa, a Rwanda-based initiative that provides nutritious meals to patients in the country's public hospitals through a farm-to-fork approach.

In the Anglophone and Lusophone Africa category, the winners were Tutilope Adewusi, co-founder of 9ijakids, a Nigeria-based platform that offers affordable online educational games to supplement primary education, Claire van Enk, founder of Farm to Feed, which tackles food insecurity in Kenya by buying surplus produce to support smallholder farmers and providing affordable food to vulnerable communities, and Jane Muchuku, co-founder of Plumbee, a food processing company that partners with rural female farmers and low-income women in Kenya to provide underserved children with nutritious food.

In the Anglophone and Lusophone Africa category, the winners were Tutilope Adewusi, founder of , a Nigeria-based platform that offers affordable online educational games to supplement primary education, Claire van Enk, founder of Farm to Feed, which tackles food insecurity by buying surplus produce to support smallholder farmers and providing affordable food to vulnerable communities, and Jane Muchuku, founder of , a food processing company that partners with rural female farmers and low-income women to provide underserved children with nutritious food.

A snapshot of the 2024 Cartier Women's Initiative awards ceremony. Source: Cartier

Commenting on this year's fellows, Wingee Sin, Global Program Director at CWI, noted that the female entrepreneurs selected to be a part of this edition can claim to be at the helm of some pretty strong businesses. "Many of them also started their business because they saw some form of injustice that they wanted to solve for," Sin added. "They really took action, even if that wasn't on their original path. I think this is something that is reoccurring year on year, but this year especially, there was a lot of very touching stories around that."

More impactful tales of this nature can be expected at next year's edition of the CWI, which shall be a special installment of the program that takes place at the World Expo in Osaka, Kansai, Japan on May 22, 2025. In this iteration, CWI shall honor former fellows whose ventures have successfully developed since they were announced to be a part of the program, and will now be able to showcase significant, measurable impacts within their fields. Nine impact awardees will thus be recognized by the CWI in categories that are based on the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals- watch this space to know who they will be!