Building a movement to restore our shared humanity
Hi! I’m Caroline and I am an award-winning visionary entrepreneur, humanitarian, social reformer, actress, inspirational speaker, coach and global thought leader
I speak, write, consult and build organisations at the intersection of some of the most important issues of our time:
China and the Emerging World
Migration, Mobility and Movement
Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation
Women’s Empowerment
Being human in the age of AI
Education and Learning for the 21st century
Spirituality and Transformative Leadership
Arts, Culture and Creativity
Global Governance and Systems Change
My Story
In my early 20s, I arrived in Beijing with a strong desire to contribute to the excitement and energy precipitated by China’s opening up in the early 2000s. Arriving in the aftermath of September 11th, I encountered a world in transition, with China’s rise to power forcing a re-examination of everything the West believed to be true about itself – and others. My passion for women’s issues and my growing awareness of the huge rural to urban migration taking place in the country, gave me a front row seat on China’s emergence onto the world stage, at the same time as I, too, emerged from the shadows of who and what I thought I was.
Born in Hong Kong of British parents, I had been acutely aware of the inequities of power and opportunity between the ‘colonised’ and the ‘colonisers’ and developed an early sensitivity to the inequities in our world. Shuttling between the glittering skyscrapers of colonial Hong Kong and the poverty and desperation of the Asia of my childhood, cemented in me a deep understanding of the power imbalances that had defined European colonialism. My deep and compassionate heart told me a more nuanced story of the West’s supposed dominance in the world and an opportunity to witness a new chapter unfolding.
Hua Dan
During my time in China, I succeeded in building China’s first social enterprise, Hua Dan, dedicated to using participatory theatre to develop the self-confidence and leadership of over 32,000 migrant women and children at the coal front of this enormous transition.
My experience enabled me to work alongside those who were at the coal face of globalisation, women moving from the countryside into the cities searching for new opportunities in the hospitality industry, the construction sites, and the factories making the electronical and technlogical goods that have powered the huge economic growth that all the world has benefited from, especially the West.
Yet these women have not reaped the benefits of that wealth growth in the same degree that we have. Subject to abusive and extractive working conditions, at the hands of both corrupt Chinese officials and morally vacuous Western companies, and now being blamed for the economic destitution of much of rural and urban America, theirs is a story that is rarely told in it’s truth or justice. Mao Ze Dong famously said that ‘women hold up half the sky’ and it has been my privilege to work alongside these extraordinary women who underpin so much of the wealth of our world.
My time in China gave me a deep love and respect for China and her people and a lens through which to witness the shifting changes in the balance of geopolitical power and a hint at the future of our world. My work with Hua Dan won us many awards and accolades that then thrust me into witnessing leadership at the highest echelons of power through my involvement with the World Economic Forum as one of their Young Global Leaders. As I transitioned back to living in continental Europe, witnessing the tumult that we are now seeing in the West, the increasing global conflicts, and the threats of climate change, artificial intelligence and rising nationalism, these multiple perspectives have given me a deep and rich understanding of the challenges and opportunities that exist in establishing a peaceful and harmonious global order.
Witnessing the horrors of the devastation in Gaza, and the tipping point that has proved to be in finally, fully, finishing any pretense of the moral upper hand of the West, we now urgently need to build a global movement to restore our individual and shared humanity to ensure we live up to the promise of our spiritual identity and the transformations possible in our world when we live in accordance with the highest promise of what we all can be.