Tessa Clarke

Tessa Clarke is the Co-Founder & CEO of OLIO, the world’s only neighbour-to-neighbour food sharing app, with over 1 million users worldwide.

After studying Social & Political Sciences at Cambridge University, Tessa became a strategy consultant with the Boston Consulting Group. She then joined Emap Plc, working for a variety of brands including FHM magazine, Magic radio, Nursing Times and Retail Week.

Next Tessa joined Dyson as their first C-level director responsible for taking Dyson digital. She worked closely alongside James Dyson and the rest of the senior management team for 4 years. 

It was when moving country on her 2nd maternity leave that Tessa had the ‘lightbulb’ moment for OLIO. The moving men had told her to throw away all her food, and unwilling to do this, she had set out onto the streets to find someone to share it with, and failed. Thus the idea for OLIO was born – a food sharing app that connects users with food they don’t want or need, with neighbours living nearby who would like it.

In just over 6 years, 5 million users have joined OLIO, with 35 million portions of food and 3 million non-food items have been shared. This is largely thanks to the 30,000+ volunteers who have become OLIO Ambassadors in their local communities, and the 4,000 Food Waste Heroes who are collecting and redistributing unsold food from local businesses via the app.

In 2018 OLIO’s pioneering work was recognised by the United Nations as an example of a truly scalable solution to the problem of climate change, and given a coveted “Momentum for Change” award. OLIO has also won numerous other awards including Chivas The Venture in the UK, The Europas, Sustainable Cities, Feel Good Brands and the Digital Agenda Impact Awards. OLIO is a member of the Mayor of London’s International Business Programme, is part of the select Upscale programme and in 2018 was accepted as an Unreasonable company.

Tessa is a knowledgable and engaging speaker, who talks on a range of topics, including The Entrepreneurial Journey, innovation, ‘tech for good’, diversity, the future of business and work, and sustainability.