Fair trade is a term for an arrangement designed to help producers in developing countries achieve sustainable and equitable trade relationships. The fair trade movement combines the payment of higher prices to exporters with improved social and environmental standards. The movement focuses in particular on commodities, or products that are typically exported from developing countries to developed countries but is also used in domestic markets, most notably for handicrafts, coffee, cocoa, wine, sugar, fruit, flowers and gold.
Starbucks Corporation is an American multinational chain of coffeehouses and roastery reserves headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It is the world's largest coffeehouse chain.
Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide, Inc. was one of the largest companies that owned, operated, franchised and managed hotels, resorts, spas, residences, and vacation ownership properties. It was acquired by Marriott International in 2016.
Howard D. Schultz is an American businessman and author who served as the chairman and chief executive officer of Starbucks from 1986 to 2000, from 2008 to 2017, and as interim CEO from 2022 to 2023. Schultz also owned the Seattle SuperSonics basketball team from 2001 to 2006.
Sahar Hashemi is a British businesswoman, best known as the co-founder of the coffee chain Coffee Republic and confectionery brand Skinny Candy. She recently co-chaired the UK government Scale Up Taskforce shaping government policy towards growing SMEs. She currently sits on the board of the Scale Up Institute. and the advisory board of the ECB HUNDRED Cricket Competition and Change Please Coffee, a social enterprise that trains and hires homeless people to run coffee bars.
The International Trade Centre (ITC) is a multilateral agency which has a joint mandate with the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the United Nations (UN) through the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
Monocle is a global affairs and lifestyle magazine, 24-hour radio station, website, retailer and media brand, produced by Winkreative Ltd. It was founded by Tyler Brûlé, a Canadian entrepreneur, Financial Times columnist, and founder of Wallpaper* magazine.
Toms is a for-profit company based in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 2006 by Blake Mycoskie, an entrepreneur from Arlington, Texas, the company designs and markets shoes as well as eyewear, coffee, apparel and handbags.
Daymond Garfield John is an American businessman, investor, and television personality. He is best known as the founder, president, and chief executive officer of FUBU, and appears as an investor on the ABC reality television series Shark Tank. Based in New York City, John is the founder of The Shark Group.
Ian Clarke is a physician, missionary, philanthropist, entrepreneur, and politician in Uganda. Since May 2011, he has been mayor of Makindye Division, one of the five administrative units of the Kampala Capital City Authority.
Paul John Lindley is a British entrepreneur and children's welfare campaigner. He founded organic baby and children's food brand Ella's Kitchen in 2006, naming it after his daughter, and later launched organic toddler toiletries brand Paddy's Bathroom, named after his son. He is an author of a best-selling book Little Wins: The Power of Thinking Like a Toddler and is a co-founder of a social enterprise called The Key is E with former child soldier and international hip-hop artist Emmanuel Jal. He was previously deputy managing director of Nickelodeon UK.
The Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) is an African non-profit organization founded in 2010 by Tony O. Elumelu and headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria. It is a pioneer member of the Global Impact Investment Rating System (GIIRS). So far, the Foundation has empowered over 18,000 African entrepreneurs across 54 African countries.
Hamdi Ulukaya is a Turkish billionaire businessman, activist, and philanthropist of Kurdish ethnicity based in the United States. Ulukaya is the owner, founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Chobani, the #1-selling strained yogurt brand in the US. He established production facilities first in upstate New York, and since then has expanded. According to Forbes, his net worth as of October 2022 is US$2.1 billion. On 26 April 2016, Ulukaya announced to his employees that he would be giving them 10% of the shares in Chobani.
Ashish J. Thakkar is a Rwandan-based entrepreneur. He is the founder of Mara Group and Mara Foundation and also a co-founder of Atlas Mara Limited. Thakkar was born in the United Kingdom, but he moved to East Africa as a teenager before founding Mara Group, a Pan-African conglomerate, at the age of 15. Mara Group's operations and investments span 22 African countries. He is the author of The Lion Awakes: Adventures in Africa's Economic Miracle.
Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu is an Ethiopian businesswoman, founder, and executive director of soleRebels, Africa's "fastest growing footwear company". Bethlehem has received honors and accolades for her business acumen, as well as her efforts to shift the discourse on Africa away from poverty to the continent's entrepreneurial spirit, social capital, and economic potential. Bethlehem launched "The Republic of Leather", designing sustainable luxury leather goods, and "Garden of Coffee" retail outlets to promote Ethiopian coffees.
Dave Asprey is an American entrepreneur, author and advocate of a low-carbohydrate high-fat diet known as the Bulletproof diet which has been criticized by dietitians for making pseudoscientific claims. He founded Bulletproof 360, Inc. in 2013, and in 2017, founded Bulletproof Nutrition Inc. Men's Health described Asprey as a "lifestyle guru".
Andrew Rugasira is a Ugandan businessman and author. He is the author of the book A good African story: how a small company built a global coffee brand. In 2003, he founded Good African Coffee, the first African-owned coffee brand to be stocked in UK supermarkets and US retailers. In 2007, he was nominated as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. He has won several awards, including the Legatum Pioneers for Prosperity award, and in 2010 was nominated for a Financial Times/ArcelorMittal Boldness in Business award. He was Uganda Coffee Development Authority's Ugandan Entrepreneur of the Year 2007. He was Uganda's chairman of the Eastern African Fine Coffees Association (EAFCA), a member of Uganda's Presidential Investor Roundtable (PIRT) and sits on the board of Maisha Film Lab. Rugasira lives in Kampala and is a father of five children.
Ber Anena born and previously published as Harriet Anena is a Ugandan writer and performer, whose writing includes poetry, nonfiction and fiction. She is the author of a collection of poems, A Nation In Labour, published in 2015, won the 2018 Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa. The Economist described her poetry performance as "an arresting evocation of love and war".
