Emilie Vanpoperinghe

Co-founder & CEO, Oddbox
Emilie Vanpoperinghe

Oddbox is a sustainable fruit and veg box tackling food waste. The company rescues delicious fresh fruit and veg which is deemed ‘too big’, ‘too ugly’, the ‘wrong’ colour, or ‘too many’ from going to waste.

A supply-led model, Oddbox partners with growers throughout the UK to box up and deliver this ‘too odd’ or ‘too many’ produce to a food waste fighting community across the UK. With every box its community reduces food waste, saves CO2 and water. Since its inception in 2016, the business has distributed over 4 million boxes, with its community rescuing a combined 25,000 tonnes of fresh fruit and veg.

Emilie has over 15 years’ project and team management experience in Fortune 500 companies (3M and BT) across the globe. She was previously Director of Finance & Operations for Girl Effect, an international NGO set up by the Nike Foundation, working in developing countries to empower adolescent girls to reach their potential. Before that, she worked close to 10 years in finance in the corporate sector in France, India and the UK.

Emilie is originally from northern France and has been in the UK for the past 10 years. Her grandparents were potato farmers and so she knows what it takes to grow fresh produce.

Emilie Vanpoperinghe
Emilie has mentored

British Nordic Walking

We improve people’s health and wellbeing by training instructors and raising awareness in Nordic Walking.

  • British Nordic Walking
  • Serious Tissues
  • Leiho

Emilie quickly understood what we wanted to achieve and encouraged us to explore familiar areas in new ways and think about how we could target new income streams. I appreciated hearing about the techniques she had employed to develop Oddbox. It was also an interesting discussion on sponsorship strategy.

Dr Catherine Hughes, Director, British Nordic Walking

Emilie has mentored

Serious Tissues

We plant a tree for every toilet roll we sell and by switching people to our toilet roll, we have planted 750k trees in a little over a year.

  • British Nordic Walking
  • Serious Tissues
  • Leiho

An hour with Emilie was time very well spent indeed. She was hugely generous with her time, advice and insight and very happy to share her experience and wisdom from the amazing trajectory Oddbox have been on for the past few years. Not quite sure how we packed so much into an hour’s conversation!

Chris Baker, Founder, Serious Tissues

Emilie has mentored

Leiho

To build a brand that helps people do good and contributes towards supporting those without a home.

  • British Nordic Walking
  • Serious Tissues
  • Leiho

“Emilie was incredibly insightful in giving us advice around growing a community, sales and marketing. It’s so helpful for us to hear from someone who has been through a similar pathway as us and learn from her journey. On top of that she’s such a lovely person and we are so grateful for her time!”

Joey Li & Thuta Khin, Founder, Leiho

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