Sophia Swire

Sophia Swire began her career at Kleinwort Benson Securities, part of London’s largest Investment Bank, but after the market crash of 1987, she started down a very different path, one that would have a direct, meaningful and immediate impact on people's lives. Whilst trekking in Chitral, a remote, snow-bound valley in Pakistan’s Hindu Kush she was approached by the local Deputy Commissioner who asked her to help him up an English Medium school, and returned to spend a year teaching there. She went on to co‐found Learning for Life, a UK-based charity that supported the establishment of over 250 village schools for girls in rural Pakistan, Afghanistan and India.  For this, she was awarded the 2010 Pakistan Achievement Award. In the 1990s, she launched and managed an innovative, social impact cashmere brand, Sophia Swire London, that is widely credited with starting the global fashion trend for pashmina shawls. In 2008, she started Afghanistan’s first Jewellery and Gem-cutting school for the charity, Turquoise Mountain, and has since worked with various Afghanistan-based government and non-government organisations to reform the gemstone mining sector and put more value into the hands of Afghan miners and artisans. In 2012, she founded the non-profit Future Brilliance to foster stability and prosperity through enterprise and workforce development in post conflict countries. Its first project helped Afghan women artisans gain access to the gemstone and jewellery value chain. In 2021, Sophia launched GEDI,  her global women’s investment fund,  at COP26, where she spoke about women’s led businesses working for climate change.

Participation on Humanity Rising

Day 591 Mon 11/28/22 ME – WE – US