10 top female-founded organisations that are making a difference

10 top female-founded organisations that are making a difference

You’d be right if you guessed that one of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals aims to achieve gender equality (extra points if you knew it was SGD no.5)! It’s no coincidence that we also measured whether organisations were owned or led by individuals from underrepresented groups for The Escape 100 list, so it’s only natural that we spotlight the kickass female founders that won a spot in this annual campaign. 

Judged over a gruelling 4-month application process that makes the notorious IronMan challenge look easy, including 145 different data points and 6,765 anonymous employee reviews, The Escape 100 organisations are officially the top purpose-led organisations to work for in 2022. Not only are these organisations leading the way with their planet-friendly work and employee-first work environments, they’re doing something different — sparking progress and providing creative solutions to pervasive problems.

So if you’re looking for a new challenge, now could be the time to check out the +300 live job opportunities at these incredible social enterprises and B Corps, which also happen to be led by some brilliant female founders:

Too Good To Go- After seeing perfectly good food thrown away at a restaurant, a group of friends vowed to do something about food waste. Co-founded by Lucie Basch and her pals, Too Good To Go aims to fix the fact that today a third of all food produced is wasted. Via the app, users can pick up surplus food from local restaurants, cafes, supermarkets, bakeries etc. that otherwise would have gone to waste. They’re now present in 17 countries, with 100,000 stores saving food on the app every day, headed up by Lucie as the Chief Expansion Officer, alongside CEO Mette Lykke. 

FLOWN - Founded by serial tech entrepreneur Alicia Navarro, who is also CEO, FLOWN is your answer to doing your best work. FLOWN is a new online platform that helps remote workers achieve “deep work”, by giving them all the tools, rituals and online deep work sessions they need. Whether that’s logging on for a ‘Flock’ (focused working with others), refreshing your eyes with their ‘Green Scenes’, or following one of their ‘Quest’ walking challenges to refuel your creativity, they have a toolbox of options to get you in the deep-work zone.

Ohne - Ohne was founded by Leah Remfry-Peploe and Nikki Michelson, best friends who met at university in 2010, and is now providing everything needed to breeze through an entire menstrual cycle. From game-changing period pants, to all-natural CBD elixirs, the team is simultaneously breaking toxic stigmas and leading the way in female-focused health technology. If this wasn’t enough, they nabbed the 5th top score for the Planet category in the Escape 100 2022 for their sustainability focus, which includes period products that are toxic-free, plastic-free, and biodegradable. Not sufficient to ‘only’ be breaking barriers in society and technology, their remote-first and flexible team is female-led, and described in the anonymous employee reviews as “a dream of a workplace”.

OLIO - Tessa Clarke’s parents are farmers, so she knows how much hard work goes into producing food. Sasha’s family are “Iowa hippy entrepreneurs”, who grew up reusing and recycling. In 2014, Tessa was moving house when her removal men told her to throw away her food - cue the moment OLIO was born! OLIO connects neighbours with each other and local businesses so surplus food can be shared. This could be food nearing its sell-by date, spare home-grown vegetables, or the groceries in your fridge when you go away. What’s more, they are fully remote, offer their team benefits like home office set-up, co-working budget, financial wellbeing and career coaching.

The Girls' Network - The Girls’ Network was started by Charly Young (MBE) and Becca Dean, who were secondary school teachers in North West London when they witnessed the multiple barriers facing girls from the least advantaged communities in their classrooms. Since 2021 they’ve been supporting teenage girls and inspiring them to reach their dreams, and it seems that they’re doing the same with their own team as well. They were reviewed in the Escape 100 by their employees as providing an inclusive, empowering and flexible work environment, where everyone has the space to “be their authentic self at work”. In a nutshell: “Everyone looks out for each other, lifts each other up and shines a light on each individual's brilliance”.

Here We Flo Ltd - Fuelled by fempower, plants and a whole lot of humour, Here We Flo was founded by Susan Augustin and Tara Chandra. Their eco-friendly period products are made from only organic and sustainably-sourced ingredients, with operations being certified Carbon Neutral and 5% of their profits going to marginalised and vulnerable communities. You miiiight have also noticed their snazzy marketing and messaging (see: bright colours, quick-witted puns and fierce language) that bring some sass and humour to the de-stigmatisation of periods and bladder leaks. It’s no surprise that their team highly rate working here, mentioning the flat hierarchy, flexibility, autonomy, monthly wellness days and sense of humour.

BRINK - Abigail Freeman (Business Psychologist) and Lea Simpson (Innovation Coach) founded sparky innovation practice BRINK to help teams tackle the world’s biggest challenges. This B-Corp acts as a meeting point for psychologists, strategists, designers, creative thinkers and tech optimists to put their heads together and bring a new perspective. Their fully remote team are impressed with the remote and flex-work options, home-office set up support, coaching benefits, and the open environment where you can “bring your full and real self to work”. As one team member put it: “I want to come to work everyday”!

Chatterbox - Mursal Hedayat (MBE) and Guillemette Dejean created Chatterbox when Mursal’s mother struggled to find highly skilled work in the UK as an Afghan refugee. The popular online language learning platform employs talented, marginalised individuals to teach their native languages, combining AI-powered self-study with human coaching. They’ve landed venture-capital funding from Silicon Valley, and already count giants like Unilever and the British Red Cross among their clients. In the Escape 100 survey, employees loved their “truly world-changing mission - the opportunity to make a real social impact. Inclusive, remote-first working. A super team. Diverse leadership." What’s not to like?!

Matchable - Founded by Wai Foong Ng, Matchable is a B2B platform matching companies and their employees with inspiring upskilling volunteering projects. with a fast-growing network of organisations adopting their services to allow their employees to make a tangible impact by lending their services pro bono to projects in need. In fact, every one of their anonymous employee reviews gave Matchable 10/10 - a pretty strong reference when you're hunting for your next career move!

Do It Now Now - Founder and CEO Bayo Adelaja created Do It Now Now to contribute to the empowerment of Black people, by providing opportunities for social mobility. Their multi-faceted programmes include AfriTech XYZ (connecting tech founders in Africa to experts ​across the world), Black and Good (a community for Black entrepreneurs and leaders), Centre Black (centring the UK's Black community through research), among others. Employees like the people centric work environment that gives creative freedom, autonomy and rewarding work: “Waking up every day knowing my work will contribute to society in a positive way is a game-changer for me”.

There are many other female-founded and female-led organisations in the Escape 100 — this is by no means an exhaustive list. Check out The Escape 100 2022 finalists to learn more about their missions and impact—you might even find your next (career) adventure!