Leaders

Women’s representation in the Asia innovation economy is well below that of men, and that stays true even when studied globally. According to PitchBook data, alone in Southeast Asia, startups founded solely by women accounted for only 0.6 percent of capital invested in the region in 2021. This is quite a surprising and unbelievable fact as leadership skills or growth potential should be gender neutral. Capitalizing on this, Vanessa Gibbons (Co-Founder & CMO) is one such start-up entrepreneur who demeans gender bias and is rising amidst the innovative industry space through her venture- SIMPLYGOOD- an eco-friendly home cleaning & personal care products packaging brand striving to eliminate the need for single-use plastic bottles in the home. She is an award-winning global executive recognized for her ability to lead & inspire teams to reach new heights and deliver breakthrough impact. WE recently engaged in a one-on-one interaction with Vanessa. Let’s hear from her.

Take us through the prior industry experience that you bring to the table. Give us a glimpse of your key areas of expertise as a business leader.

I have 19 years of experience in diverse markets across the Asia Pacific driving growth for Climate Impact X, Carta, Microsoft, Hilton, Sony, and WPP. I also hold deep corporate expertise in strategic planning, P&L management, revenue management, people leadership & culture building, brand marketing & demand generation, international market expansion, sales &business development, digital transformation, customer success, and operations. Additionally, I have a proven track record in launching and scaling climate tech, fintech, e-Commerce, SaaS, gaming, and AI solutions solving complex challenges for governments, industry, businesses, and consumers. Being a passionate advocate for boosting Southeast Asia innovation economy, and hence serve as an angel investor/advisory board member in 15 early-stage sustainability startups, besides being Founder of Singapore’s sustainable CPG brand, SIMPLYGOOD.

What motivated you to co-found SIMPLYGOOD? Tell us about the underlying idea behind the venture and some of the primary areas of expertise.

Growing up on Sydney beaches in Australia, I’ve always had a passion for nature. But it was only in 2019, when I participated in a ‘HER Planet Earth’ challenge along with 15 executive women to hike 100 kilometers of the remote Matthew Ranges in Northern Kenya that my passion for nature turned into a passion for sustainability in action. During the hike, I saw first-hand the impact of single-use plastic waste. Every day there were hundreds of discarded plastic bottles littering the pristine protected rangelands, and despite the conservation efforts of the local tribes & tourist communities it was having a lasting and negative impact on wildlife.

" I embrace a growth mindset and empower others to achieve more"

So, on my return from Kenya, I decided to take action starting at home, reducing the amount of single-use plastic my family and I consume. But it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. From drinks to cleaning products, hand soap to hair shampoo bottles, most of the products in the supermarket came in single-use plastic bottles. Natural refill options were even harder to find and when I could find them, they were much more expensive than traditional chemical single-use plastic bottle options. After some research, I found Singapore startup – SIMPLYGOOD, and immediately fell in love with their 100 percent natural and plant-based dissolvable home cleaning tablets which are designed to eliminate single-use plastics in the home. I became such a brand fan of SIMPLYGOOD that I joined Jeremy as the co-founder in 2022, with a promise to take SIMPLYGOOD global and make it easy for every consumer to take sustainable actions at home, and positively impact the planet.

What are the various responsibilities as the co-founder of SIMPLYGOOD? How do you intend to drive growth for the company?

My co-founder and I have split responsibilities for the day-to-day operations of SIMPLYGOOD. While Jeremy focuses on P&L management, product formulations, product design, supply chain, and investor relations, my focus as the CMO is on strategic brand building, customer acquisition & retention, and revenue generation through our channels. It has been an amazing first 18 months business journey, where, we’ve launched six cleaning and personal care products in the market, introduced SIMPLYGOOD to over 300,000 consumers through our brand advertising, expanded beyond Singapore into Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand, compelled 5000+ customers to make the switch to SIMPLYGOOD and saved over 30,000 single-use plastic bottles from ending into landfill & oceans. In the next 12 months, we will expand our range to include laundry tablets and dishwashing liquid and launch bulk pack sizes suitable for SMEs. We will also expand across grocery and high-street retail starting with Muji in Singapore. Though, time management for our business, conducting measurable experiments, and maintaining resilience remain a challenge, we’re building on them by streamlining our business operations and processes.

Tell us about the top three milestones you have achieved, including your success mantra.

Early on in my career, I took the opportunity to work in Indonesia and New Zealand. Learning new cultural contexts, experiencing different corporate norms, and building diverse friendships set me on a course early on to work in a global context. Apart from that, at Microsoft, I had the enormous privilege to work with super bright people who were passionate about changing the world. At the heart of Microsoft’s culture, there are engraved two ideas – embracing a growth mindset and empowering others to achieve more. I took these learnings from Microsoft and I apply them almost daily to everything I do. Well, ‘Leap and the net will appear’, which means I embrace risk, not blindly believing that I’ll win but trusting that even if things don’t work out, there will be a safety net to catch me’. So, when I am presented with an opportunity I say yes and I trust that my net (network) will be there to hold me if it all falls over.

Vanessa Gibbons, Co-Founder & CMO, Simplygood

With 19 Years Of Experience In Diverse Markets Across The Asia Pacific, She Is Conscientiously Leading The Cpg Industry Through An Eco-Friendly Initiative- Simplygood.