Biography
Sandra D’Souza,
CEO and Founder, Ellect, Gender Equality Advocate and Public Speaker
Sandra D’Souza is an experienced business professional and a published author who is trained and educated in all aspects of business including finance, operations, strategy, marketing and sales. Having cultivated 20 years’ worth of experience in media and IT industries such as MTV Europe, Telstra, News Corp and UBS, Sandra transitioned to consulting and working with SMEs and tech startups. With a passion for entrepreneurial ventures and seeing the potential of content curation technologies, Sandra founded Curate Bee Digital Marketing Agency in 2012 which was acquired in 2018 by an international corporate.
On International Women’s Day 2019, Sandra launched Ellect to address the gender gap in business with its global procurement marketplace and certification program. As a strong advocate for gender balance in business and aware of the barriers women and men encounter in establishing a gender balance, this unique digital marketplace and certification program offers businesses to shown as working towards gender balance. Ellect is aligned with United Nations Global Goal no. 5 – Gender Equality to be a purpose driven business where part of the proceeds fund known gender equality projects. Sandra has been advocating for women’s rights ever since she was a teenager. She is the recipient of the Edna Ryan Award for Mentoring (for the advancement of women) in 2008 and was shortlisted for NSW Women Awards in 2018. In 2002 she became part of the executive team with BPW (an NGO called Business and Professional Women) starting out in Vice-President roles in BPW Sydney to State President for BPW NSW in 2006 to 2009 to Executive Director on BPW International between 2012 to 2014. During that time, Sandra was one of Australian Leaders in Commonwealth Business Council.
