Published on
May 24, 2025
Now in its 19th year, Cartier is backing social impact entrepreneurs and encouraging founders in Australia and New Zealand to get involved.
The Cartier Women’s Initiative Impact Awardees were celebrated at the Sakai Performing Arts Center in Osaka. Image: Cartier
When Cyrille Vigneron became CEO of Cartier in 2016, he took the helm not only of the iconic jewellery and watchmaker, but also of the Cartier Women’s Initiative (CWI), a global entrepreneurship program dedicated to driving change by empowering women impact entrepreneurs.
“Since its inception, the Cartier Women’s Initiative has empowered 330 women from 66 countries, helping them scale their businesses and amplify their impact on communities,” Vigneron tells Forbes Australia.
Vigneron stepped down as CEO of Cartier in 2024, but his commitment to the women’s initiative and other philanthropic projects continues in his new role as Chairman of Culture and Philanthropy.
“Through my involvement in these initiatives, I have witnessed how uplifting women creates ripple effects that transform communities,” Vigneron says.
This year, the Cartier Women’s Initiative recognised nine entrepreneurs from countries including Ireland, India, Kenya, Jordan, the UK, and Rwanda. The Impact Awards were presented across three categories: preserving the planet, improving lives and creating opportunities. The winners were announced at a ceremony in Osaka, at the Sakai Performing Arts Center.
Tracy O’Rourke is a Dublin-based entrepreneur who received an Impact Award at the 2025 Cartier Women’s Initiative in Osaka, Japan. Image: Cartier
Tracey O’Rourke, one of the nine women to receive an Impact Award this week, agrees that the community that Cartier is building is invaluable.
“It seems to attract a cohort of incredibly intelligent, accomplished women who are really, really grounded and working on the principles that are going to ensure that we’ve got a terrific long-term sustainable world,” says O’Rourke.
Hailing from Dublin, Ireland, O’Rourke founded Vivid Edge ten years ago with a mission to minimise carbon emissions. The company provides businesses with energy efficiency upgrades, advises on solar panels, and undertakes energy surveys.
The Cartier Women’s Initiative has provided her with an enduring, global community of like-minded women to go through the arduous entrepreneurial journey with, O’Rourke says.
Fellow Impact Awardee Kresse Wesling, founder of Elvis and Kresse, also built a company around sustainability – upcycling materials such as fire hoses into luxury handbags. UK-based Wesling says her association with Cartier has been invaluable to the development of her company.
“It’s a very, very generous program and it’s celebratory. Being an entrepreneur is often quite lonely and Cartier is spectacularly good at celebrating what we do and making us feel amazing and sustained,” says Kresse.
Kresse Wesley founded Elvis and Kresse to make better use of discarded materials. She now produces luxury bags from decommissioned hoses. Image: Cartier
Caitlin Golkart from Kenya, Yvette Isimwe from Rwanda, Rama Kayaali from Jordan, Mariam Torosyan from Armenia, Jackie Stensen, Kristin Kagetsu and Banka Bioloo from India, were also awarded.
This is the 19th year the Women’s Initiative celebration has taken place. Vigneron is proud of the impact the program has, and the impact that the entrepreneurs it supports are having on the world.
“The Maison believes in the power of collaboration and partnering with like-minded organisations and individuals who share its values,” he says.
More than USD$12 million has been provided to fellows of the Initiative since 2006. The entrepreneurs have also received training on scaling their organisations through the coveted INSEAD Business School, and executive leadership coaching.
Today, there are more than 500 active community members across 80 countries.
One of them is Australian Alison Harrington, who founded Resparke in 2016 and became a Cartier Women’s Initiative fellow in 2024. She attended the Impact Awards in Osaka this year and speaks highly of the experience and the global community of social impact entrepreneurs that Cartier is building.
Harrington encourages Australian and New Zealand-based female social impact entrepreneurs to apply and says the network she has built from the program has been priceless. Applications for the 2026 Cartier Women’s Initiative close on June 24, 2025.
The nine Impact Awardees celebrated at the 2025 Cartier Women’s Initiative in Osaka, were awarded in three categories: preserving the planet, improving lives and creating opportunities. Image: Cartier
Wingee Sin is the global program director of the program, and a former executive at Barclays and Goldman Sachs. Sin says we are in a moment of transition and now is an important time to empower women entrepreneurs.
“Women are starting businesses at a very rapid rate and those businesses are continuing,” says Sin.
Moving forward, that rate is expected to continue to grow.
“In the next two decades we’re in the midst of the transfer of one hundred trillion dollars of wealth,” says Sin.
“Women currently control 30% of the wealth assets, and in two decades we will control more than 50% of the wealth assets. This will mean that the businesses and entrepreneurship that gets funded and gets created will change substantially.”
That shift creates an opportunity for global community development, according to Sin and Vigneron. Key to that community, is universality, they say.
“Beyond origins, nationalities, language or religions, we are all different yet all part of the same humanity,” Vigneron told the 500 attendees of the Impact Awards. “In this community, everyone is different and, therefore, everyone is similar.”
The jeweller and watchmaker, founded in Paris in 1847, is also bringing together women from across the globe through the Women’s Pavilion at the 2025 World Expo in Osaka.
“Through its philanthropic initiatives and programs, Cartier contributes to building a future that resonates with future generations,” Vigneron says. “These commitments are part of the Maison identity.”
Applications for the 2026 Cartier Women’s Initiative are open until June 24, 2025. For more information go to cartierwomensinitiative.com
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