Now in its 20th year, the Cartier Women’s Initiative provides a leg up for social entrepreneurs around the world. Three Aussie women made the cut in 2026 and will join 27 other global CWI fellows in Bangkok this June.
At the Cartier Women’s Initiative celebration in Osaka last year, Amal Clooney told the audience that “the arc of history bends towards justice, but that’s only because individuals are bending it.”
This year’s Cartier Women’s Initiative includes three Australian women working to bend and improve the circumstances of Australians. Alexandra Cannizzaro, Ruby Riethmuller and Rosie Dumbrell are building solutions across sustainability, mental health, and intimate wear, and will join 27 other fellows at the Cartier Women’s Initiative in Bangkok, Thailand, in June 2026.
Alexandra Cannizzaro
Platform Zero
“Our mission is to reshape how fresh produce moves through the market – cutting costs, cutting waste and leading with transparency,” says Cannizzaro.
Platform Zero does this by reducing the amount of time it takes to get fresh produce into the hands of customers. Its digital marketplace connects growers/wholesalers to retailers, replacing the analogue processes of yesteryear. The problem is close to Cannizzaro’s heart. She ran juice bars before becoming a social entrepreneur, and her father is a farmer.
So far, more than 43,000 kilograms of produce has been diverted from landfill, according to the company, and 27,000 kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions saved.
“With little visibility into what is grown, sold or rejected, large volumes of surplus produce are sent to landfill, wasting food and driving emissions,” the company states.
Ruby Riethmuller
Womn-Kind
While Cannizzaro is building an agricultural solution, Ruby Riethmuller is working on a mental health one.
“Our focus is empowering a generation of girls and young women to grow into their identity, voice and confidence,” says Riethmuller, the founder and CEO of Womn-Kind.
Growing up in Wagga Wagga and now based in Sydney, Riethmuller has developed a ‘preventative mental health education platform’ that aims to ‘build wellbeing, leadership and belonging early in life.’
It is a ubiquitous problem, Riethmuller says, noting that 75% of mental illnesses develop before the age of 25. Her digital solution is built to reach adolescents and young women in rural areas, as well as those in metropolitan districts. Some 60 per cent of the 30,000 people Womn-Kind has helped so far, live in regional and remote locations, according to Riethmuller. The platform is now available in 37 countries.
Rosie Dumbrell
Everform Therapywear
Another industrious Australian tackling a global problem is Melbourne’s Rosie Dumbrell.
“I’m passionate about helping women get back to the things they love, without fear or limitation. We exist, so she can,” says Dumbrell, the founder of Everform Therapywear.
More than 200 million women across the globe live with incontinence, Dumbrell says, with childbirth, high-impact sport and ageing being contributors to the condition. Suffering through incontinence and prolapse herself, Dumbrell set out to create a sustainable solution. Rather than disposable sanitary pads, the physiotherapist created ‘medical-grade compression garments’ designed to reduce leakage.
Together, these three Aussie women are bound by the ambition to solve systemic problems because of the challenges they themselves fought through. They join a community of 520 Cartier Women’s Initiative fellows around the globe, many of who will be at the 20th anniversary celebration of the program in Bangkok.
Three women will walk away from that event with funds to continue their social impact. In total, AUD$275,000 in grant funding will be handed out to first, second, and third place awardees. In the meantime, however, all 2026 fellows receive impact entrepreneurship training with the coveted INSEAD business school, as well as leadership coaching and development to grow their organisations.
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