Our Story
not everyone can invest in women, not everyone can mentor them. but we can all buy from them.
The simple but powerful idea that started a movement.
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if you can see it, you can be it.
The UK’s rate of female entrepreneurship is 30% lower than other developed nations. This gap is costing our economy an estimated £250 billion in lost output.
But the challenge isn’t just economic.
Ask a classroom to name a woman founder, and 81% of young people can’t think of a single one. That lack of visibility is the problem: when we don’t see women as founders, we don’t buy from them, or believe we could become one. We’re surrounded by incredible brands built by women, yet most people have no idea who is behind them.
This was a spark for our founder Sahar Hashemi: not everyone can invest in a female founder, not everyone can mentor one but everyone can buy from them. That simple truth became the driving force behind Buy Women Built - a movement that uses the power of everyday spending to drive change.
WHY THIS MATTERS
Buy Women Built is about showing people what our female founders have created. For too long, the focus has been on how to fund, mentor, or fix the barriers women face, but the real power lies in seeing what is already here: thousands of brands built by women, growing quietly in plain sight.
By putting those brands in the spotlight, we move away from talking about potential to celebrating proof; proof of innovation, creativity, and resilience.
We know that when women-built brands are visible, they don’t just grow. They become new role models, with each product a story of possibility for the next generation.
November 2020
The tweet that started it all
Sahar Hashemi had her lightbulb moment during lockdown.
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December 2021
The movement begins
She teamed up with marketing guru, Barny Macaulay, to bring the idea to life. It began with a WhatsApp group of three female founders.
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January 2022
The first meet up
Word spread and the group began to grow. They met up and instantly felt something special, the power of connection and a shared experience of being a female founder. The idea was no longer a thought, it was a movement.
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March 2023
The official launch of BWB
On International Women’s Day, Buy Women Built officially launched with a celebration of women-built brands and the founders behind them, making national headlines.
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March 2024
The window that stopped shoppers
The Whole Foods Market flagship store celebrated Buy Women Built by transforming their shopfronts into powerful storytelling spaces that stopped shoppers in their tracks. It was the first time the movement was brought to life in a retailer and it went viral!
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April 2024
The Kitemark takes off
More and more brands begin proudly displaying the BWB Kitemark, turning packaging, websites and billboards and into powerful statements of what women can build.
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October 2024
The world's first women built aisle
Ocado unveiled the world’s first Buy Women Built aisle, featuring over 130 female-founded brands, a landmark moment for visibility and consumer choice.
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June 2025
Belief becomes hard data
NielsenIQ released a research report showing the commercial power of visibility, revealing that purchasing intent doubles when a product features the BWB kitemark. The numbers are clear, when you make women-built visible, customers act.
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And counting…
Our founding story
Buy Women Built began with a moment of clarity for our founder, Sahar Hashemi OBE. After co-founding the UK’s first coffee bar chain, Coffee Republic, growing it to 100 stores, writing the bestselling Anyone Can Do It, and leading a UK Government Taskforce on scale-ups, she saw a tweet in 2020 that expressed a simple but powerful truth: not everyone can invest in or mentor a female founder, but everyone can support them through what they buy.
It highlighted a missing piece she had felt for years. While huge progress had been made in funding, policy and support programmes, visibility remained the quiet barrier. Most consumers simply didn’t know which brilliant brands around them were built by women. Sahar set out to change that by harnessing the power of everyday purchasing. She teamed up with marketing expert Barny Macaulay, and together they created Buy Women Built, starting with a WhatsApp group of just three founders.
The team behind the movement
Sahar
Hashemi OBE
Founder & CEO
Amisha
Mody
Partnerships
Maddie
Pirrie
Community
Georgina Pilkington
Events
Serena
Slatter
Socials
