Tessa Clarke

Tessa Clarke is the cofounder and CEO of Olio, the food-sharing app that turns surplus food and household items into opportunities for community connection and environmental action.

Tessa Clarke: Olio Cofounder and Food Waste Entrepreneur

Tessa Clarke is a British entrepreneur, business leader, and sustainability advocate best known as the cofounder and chief executive officer of Olio. Her company helps people share surplus food and household items with neighbors instead of throwing them away.

Clarke’s journey began in Yorkshire, where she grew up on her family’s dairy farm. The experience gave her an early understanding of the labor, resources, and care required to produce food, shaping a lifelong belief that good food should be eaten rather than wasted.

She studied Social and Political Sciences at the University of Cambridge, graduating with a first-class degree in 1997. After university, she began her career as a strategy consultant at Boston Consulting Group, gaining experience in analysis, leadership, and business strategy.

Clarke then built a successful corporate career across media, retail, and financial services. She held senior leadership roles at Emap, Dyson, and Wonga, developing expertise in digital business, operations, and organizational transformation.

Despite her professional success, she began to question whether her work aligned with her values. During a leadership course, she realized that she wanted a career driven by purpose rather than status alone. That realization encouraged her to rethink what success could mean.

In 2002, Clarke enrolled in the MBA program at Stanford University. There, she met Saasha Celestial-One, who would later become her cofounder. Their shared interest in entrepreneurship, sustainability, and social impact laid the foundation for one of the United Kingdom’s most influential purpose-led technology companies.

Clarke’s idea for Olio emerged from a personal moment in 2014. While preparing to move from Switzerland back to the United Kingdom, she found herself with surplus food that she could not bring herself to throw away, including sweet potatoes, cabbage, and yogurt.

Instead of placing the food in a bin, she went door to door in her neighborhood, carrying her newborn and toddler, hoping to find someone who could use it. That experience revealed a simple but powerful insight: people often have food they do not need, while others nearby may need it.

The idea became the starting point for Olio. Clarke and Celestial-One wanted to create an easy way for individuals and local businesses to give away surplus food, reducing waste while strengthening neighborhood connections.

They began with a small experiment. Twelve people in one North London neighborhood joined a WhatsApp group and were invited to share food that might otherwise go unused. At first, there was little activity, but the sharing soon grew rapidly after one person posted half a bag of shallots.

The positive response confirmed that the idea had potential. People did not simply want to avoid waste; they wanted a convenient way to help others and feel connected to their local community. Clarke and Celestial-One then began developing the first version of the Olio app.

Olio was incorporated in February 2015, while both founders were on maternity leave. They set themselves a deadline of December 31 to launch an app, gather evidence, and raise funding. That sense of urgency reflected their determination to turn a practical idea into a scalable solution.

Clarke’s background in corporate leadership helped her approach Olio with discipline. She understood how to build teams, manage growth, and make strategic decisions, while her cofounder brought entrepreneurial energy and a deep commitment to reducing waste.

Together, they created a company built around a simple mission: make it easy for people to share more and waste less. Olio began as a food-sharing platform but later expanded to include household items such as clothing, furniture, toiletries, and other useful goods.

Under Clarke’s leadership, Olio has grown from a neighborhood experiment into a global platform with millions of users. The company connects households, volunteers, and businesses so that surplus items can find new homes rather than ending up in landfill.

Olio’s growth has been driven by community participation. Volunteers collect and redistribute surplus food from local businesses, while individuals use the app to give away items they no longer need. This model turns environmental action into something practical, social, and accessible.

Clarke has described Olio as a “profit for good” company. That approach reflects her belief that businesses can pursue financial sustainability while also creating measurable social and environmental benefits.

Her work has attracted recognition from organizations around the world. Olio has been highlighted by the United Nations as a beacon for the world, while Vivatech named it the “Next European Unicorn,” recognizing its potential for major growth and impact.

Clarke’s story also demonstrates the power of starting small. Olio did not begin with a massive budget or a fully developed product. It began with a WhatsApp group, a neighborhood experiment, and two founders willing to test an idea before scaling it.

For aspiring entrepreneurs, her experience offers an important lesson. A successful business does not always begin with a revolutionary invention. Sometimes, it begins with noticing a problem that affects everyday life and finding a practical way to solve it.

Clarke has often said that entrepreneurs do not need to wait for a perfect idea. Instead, they can look for a problem they care deeply about and build a solution around it. Her own career shows how that mindset can lead to meaningful innovation.

Tessa Clarke’s Olio App and Sustainable Living Mission

Tessa Clarke’s work with Olio is rooted in one of the world’s most urgent environmental challenges: food waste. Olio helps households and businesses redistribute edible surplus food, reducing the amount of usable food that is discarded.

Food waste has environmental, social, and economic consequences. When food is thrown away, the resources used to produce it, including water, energy, land, and labor, are wasted as well. Reducing waste can therefore benefit both people and the planet.

Clarke grew up with a strong aversion to waste because of her farming background. She saw firsthand how much effort goes into producing food, from caring for animals to working long hours throughout the year. That perspective continues to shape Olio’s mission.

Her company’s approach is intentionally local. Rather than relying solely on large-scale logistics, Olio connects people with others nearby. This hyper-local model makes sharing convenient and helps build trust within communities.

Olio’s impact extends beyond food. Users can share clothing, books, household goods, furniture, and other items that still have value. By extending the life of everyday products, the platform encourages people to move away from throwaway culture.

The app has also become a source of practical support during periods of financial pressure. People can give when they have surplus items and receive when they need help, creating a more compassionate and resourceful form of community exchange.

Clarke believes that sustainability should feel empowering rather than overwhelming. Olio gives people a clear action they can take in their daily lives: share what they no longer need, reduce waste, and help someone nearby.

That message has helped Olio grow beyond a technology product into a movement. The company describes itself as a movement for optimism, emphasizing that small individual actions can contribute to meaningful collective change.

Clarke’s advocacy for the sharing economy reflects a broader vision of sustainable living. She argues that communities can meet more of their needs through sharing, borrowing, repairing, and reusing, rather than relying exclusively on new consumption.

Her work also challenges the idea that environmental responsibility must come at the expense of practicality. Olio makes sustainable behavior simple by embedding it into an everyday digital experience.

As climate concerns become increasingly urgent, Clarke’s leadership offers a model for how entrepreneurs can respond. She has shown that businesses can address environmental problems while creating value, building community, and improving people’s lives.

Leadership, Purpose, and Entrepreneurship

Clarke’s leadership style is shaped by her belief in purpose-driven business. She has argued that companies should create value for shareholders while also considering their impact on people, communities, and the environment.

Her advocacy for the Better Business Act reflects that vision. The campaign encourages companies to consider the interests of stakeholders, including employees, customers, communities, and the planet, alongside financial performance.

Clarke has also used her platform to encourage more women to pursue entrepreneurship. She has spoken openly about the lack of relatable role models she experienced earlier in her career and the barriers that can make technology entrepreneurship feel inaccessible.

By leading a successful company and speaking publicly about her experiences, she helps make entrepreneurship feel more attainable for women from different backgrounds. Her story shows that a nontraditional path can lead to extraordinary impact.

She has also become a prominent voice in business media. As a columnist for Sifted, Clarke shares insights on entrepreneurship, leadership, sustainability, and the realities of building a mission-led company.

Her TED talk on the power of sharing has been watched more than one million times. Through public speaking, Clarke has helped bring attention to food waste, community resilience, and the potential of sharing-based solutions.

In 2023, she received the Veuve Clicquot Bold Woman Award, one of the longest-running awards recognizing female business leaders. The honor reflected both her entrepreneurial achievements and her influence as a role model.

Clarke’s leadership is defined by persistence. Building a startup requires resilience, especially when the mission involves changing everyday habits and challenging a culture of convenience and disposal.

Her ability to combine corporate experience with entrepreneurial thinking has been central to Olio’s development. She understands both the importance of strong systems and the value of experimentation, community trust, and rapid learning.

Tessa Clarke’s Impact on Sustainability and Community

Tessa Clarke’s impact is visible in the millions of people who use Olio to share food and household items. Her work has helped turn a personal frustration into a global platform for practical environmental action.

Olio’s success shows that sustainability does not have to be abstract. People can participate by listing an unused item, collecting surplus food, or connecting with a neighbor who needs something they already have.

Clarke’s vision challenges the assumption that individual actions are too small to matter. When many people make small changes, the collective result can be significant, both for local communities and for the environment.

Her career also demonstrates the importance of aligning work with values. Clarke moved from a successful corporate career into entrepreneurship because she wanted to build something that reflected her beliefs and created positive change.

That transition was not easy, but it became the foundation for a company with global reach. Her willingness to take a risk, learn new skills, and persist through uncertainty has made her an influential figure in sustainable business.

Clarke’s story is particularly relevant at a time when communities are searching for practical ways to address climate change, inequality, and waste. Olio offers a model that combines technology, local action, and human connection.

Her message is simple: people do not need to wait for institutions to solve every problem. They can begin where they are, with the resources they have, and with the people around them.

Through Olio, Clarke has helped redefine what a successful business can look like. It can be profitable, scalable, and innovative while also prioritizing social good and environmental responsibility.

As Olio continues to grow, Clarke’s influence is likely to expand as well. Her work encourages a future in which sharing becomes normal, waste becomes avoidable, and communities play a central role in creating a more sustainable world.

Tessa Clarke’s journey proves that meaningful change often begins with a simple question: what can I do differently today?