Independent Oxford has partnered with the University of Oxford’s IDEA Programme to bring you a special online panel discussion for International Women’s Day 2022 with an inspiring line up of female independent business owners from across Oxfordshire, discussing this year’s theme #BreakTheBias: Imagining a gender equal world, and how social impact indies are helping to create a world where difference is valued and celebrated.
The session will be chaired by Ashley Cavers, co-founder and director of Oxfordshire indie, The Wonky Food Company. Ashley has a background in print and broadcast media (SKY, BBC, The Sunday Times Fast Track) with more recent experience in business communications, network building, and enterprise support, with a focus on small business, start-ups and impact ventures. Since 2018 she has worked as a business adviser for the Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership (OxLEP) providing 1:1 support for hundreds of businesses and she currently manages an OxLEP programme, eScalate, supporting charities, social enterprises and purposeful businesses. Ashley is also an experienced entrepreneur herself, having previously built and sold a successful business and is currently involved in another start-up, as the co-founder and director of The Wonky Food Company, which makes products from imperfect and surplus fruit and vegetables. In 2019, Ashley was a semi-finalist in the Enterprise Nation Female Start-up of the Year competition.
Ashley will be joined by panelists from socially conscious indies in Oxfordshire including:
Tess Taylor, co-founding director at Tap Social Movement
Tess is one of the founding directors of Tap Social Movement, a social enterprise brewery and hospitality organisation that provides training and employment to people in prison. In the five years since opening, Tap Social has grown to a commercial wholesale brewing operation with 3 hospitality venues, offering training and employment to more than 40 people from prison and advocating for prison reform through its branding, talks, and brokerage work. Tess is passionate about social justice, community, and good beer.
Katie Gordon, founder of Every Body Studio
Katie Gordon is a coach, yoga teacher and the founder of Every Body Studio, and is based in Oxford. She works with movement, breath and tools from psychology to help people work towards creating the life they want. Every Body Studio is a small, supportive, non judgmental space for movement classes on Magdalen Road in east Oxford. The team specialise in Yoga, Pilates and Barre.
Sarah Adams, co-founder of The Herberowe Candle Co
Sarah Adams founded The Herberowe Candle Co with her husband Colin in 2020. Having spent more than 30 years as a journalist and PR – for much of that time writing about small businesses and helping them to raise their profile – Sarah has always had a passion for indie businesses and a specific interest in writing about those run by women. Lockdown gave her and Colin the chance to develop their own business and in June 2021 The Herberowe Candle Co was among the finalists in the Blenheim Palace start-up competition and now has partnerships with several local stockists and a national charity.
Sarah Jordan, founder of YOU Underwear
Sarah Jordan is a multi-award-winning entrepreneur and the Founder and CEO of Y.O.U underwear, a sustainable underwear business that was recently certified as the top-scoring B Corp in the UK and highest-scoring fashion brand globally. Sarah’s previous experience includes more than 25 years and senior leadership roles across the not-for-profit, commercial and publishing sectors, including locally at Oxfam and OUP, as well as successfully running her own strategic digital consultancy business. Sarah was volunteering in Uganda when she discovered the challenges faced by women and girls who didn’t have access to underwear. She changed direction completely and set up Y.O.U underwear as a social enterprise trying to change lives one pair of pants at a time.
Sarah is also a qualified NLP practitioner and coach, is Trustee of the charities Smalls for All and The Beam Foundation, and has run BOLD, a positive change agency helping women achieve success in all areas of their lives, since 2013.
Following the discussion there will be a chance to ask questions.
