With the announcement of the highest number of Cartier Women’s Initiative fellows ever, the luxury brand reaffirms its unwavering support commitment to women impact entrepreneurs worldwide.
Since its introduction in 2006, the Cartier Women’s Initiative has supported 298 women impact entrepreneurs from 63 countries and has awarded $7 440 000 (R134 851 562.40) in grants to support their businesses. With this year’s initiative, Cartier is continuing with this commitment raising the number of fellows to the highest-ever of 33. The firm has also announced it is increasing funding. In addition, new regional and thematic awards have been introduced for 2023’s Cartier Women’s Initiative.
This year’s programme features 11 awards, nine regional — including Oceania and Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa — and two are thematic: Science and Technology Pioneer Award and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award. The latter seeks to encourage entrepreneurial solutions to close gaps of access, outcome or opportunities for communities that have been underrepresented or underserved. Unlike other awards, this pilot is open to all genders.
“Women have always had a pivotal role at Cartier, who has actively supported women entrepreneurs for more than 16 years. We are thrilled, this year, to further expand our recognition of changemakers across the world with our two new regional awards and our new Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award,” said Cyrille Vigneron, President and CEO of Cartier International.
Each first-place awardee of the 11 awards will be announced during the Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards Ceremony in Paris on May 10, 2023. The first-place awardees will take home $100 000 (R1 812 550) in grant funding, while the second and third-place awardees will receive $60 000 (R1 087 530) and $30 000 (R543 765), respectively. To facilitate this, the total grant funding per edition has increased to $2 million (R36 251 000), the most significant amount yet. In addition to the grant funding, all 33 fellows will also benefit from tailored mentoring and coaching, media visibility, networking opportunities and education courses from the leading business school INSEAD.