MY LIGHT BULB MOMENT
Camilla marCus-Dew, 32, founded the award-winning social enterprise and luxury beauty business The soap Co. in 2015. she lives in east london. GROWING up in Bournemouth, I spent lots of time with my niece, who has cerebral palsy. Iesha was like a little sister to me, and though her disability was a challenge, I never thought of it as limiting or excluding — and neither did she.
But other people didn’t always see it that way. When she went to school, it saddened me to see how overprotected she was. She had to spend playtimes by herself in case other children knocked her over. It wasn’t a necessary precaution and it frustrated her deeply. We both knew she was more resilient than people realised.
After university, I moved to London and while doing some consultancy work for the charity Leonard Cheshire Disability, I met other young disabled people and began to realise how dissatisfied I was in the corporate world.
My lightbulb moment came when a friend used the phrase ‘social enterprise’ in conversation. I remember thinking, wait a minute! Those are precisely the words that describe what I want to do, combining all my experience in business with this deep desire to help other people.
Before my 30th birthday, I founded The Soap Co., an ethical, luxury brand. It has gone from strength to strength over the past two years; I now employ 114 people, 80 per cent of whom are either blind or disabled in another way.
This month, I hired someone who had a severe stroke ten years ago and, having learned how to walk and speak again, is finally ready to go back to work. Not long ago, we gave a 47-year-old man with severe epilepsy his first job.
It’s so easy to judge people on what you think they can’t do rather than thinking about what they can do. The Soap Co. shows that disabled people can do it all — from data analytics to product design — and make something beautiful with mass appeal.
Today, our products are sold in more than 80 UK outlets, and we supply handwash to big businesses, including Anthropologie and PwC.