May Al-Karooni

May Al-Karooni realised no one had digitised the waste industry when the bank she worked for moved offices across the road. Rather than moving their office furniture, most of which was in perfect condition, they disposed of it all and purchased brand new furniture.

Seeing this immense waste was a revelation; she knew there were charities, community groups and people that needed these items, and that her bank had also incurred high fees for both the disposal, storage and repurchase of the furniture.

This light bulb moment resulted in the birth of Globechain, and with £800, May set up the first Globechain website. She chose to self-fund initially since there was no market or access to funding for services that ‘do good’ like Globechain at the time.

Since then, Globechain has grown significantly, with valuable product features such as Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) data reporting and internal sharing and lending for businesses.

Today, Globechain is the biggest reuse marketplace worldwide, with over 10,000 members operating in the UK, Spain, the UAE and New York.