Maria Murphy
How to build a conscious “do good” company with a “reduce, reuse, reclaim and recycle” business model
What if you could create a highly scalable and profitable business model by helping the needy?
Increasingly entrepreneurs are finding ways to innovate “do good” business models that solve significant global challenges – whether by revolutionizing the supply chain, diversifying their board and workforce, fair trade, or creating models that provide a portion of profits to lift workers, communities and causes in the developing world.
Maria Murphy is changing the game in fashion with a socially-conscious e-commerce marketplace that showcases handmade fairly traded items by women artisans around the world.
Today she shares her inspiration both to help women workers in the developing world while educating consumers here about how to shop responsibly – all with a highly scalable business model that is global in scope.
Listen to learn:
- All about Fair Trade and how to apply it to your business
- How to “reduce reuse reclaim recycle” in any company
- What it’s like to grow a side hustle into global business while holding down an Executive job
- And more!
More about Maria at Lei-Lei.net
Read more about Maria at Style At A Certain Age
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More about Maria Murphy:
Maria knew from a young age that she loved to dress up and shop. Her passion was fueled by her mother, who was a showroom model and Maria worked throughout high school and college at Macy’s on the selling floor. After four years and a BS in Marketing and an AAS in Fashion Buying and Merchandising from FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology) in New York City, Maria began her career in wholesale fashion sales.
In time she knew she needed to do something more important and wanted to put money back into the hands of those that needed it most – the workers. She founded and launched Lei-Lei in 2013 with some help from our oldest daughter Ali in between her visits home from college. Maria wanted to involve her daughter in something that she could say she helped create, be proud of, and learn about business while helping others in need.
Lei-Lei is founded on the principle that helping others in need makes the world a better place. It started with beautiful beaded bracelets handmade in a Christian community in Kathmandu, Nepal. Word of mouth and a small website of loyal and repeat customers kept them very busy – and within two years Lei-Lei diversified and grew into an ecommerce global marketplace. Products include Moroccan clutches and market baskets, sheep’s wool animal booties for newborns from Kyrgyzstan, eco-resin and up-cycled horn jewelry, alpaca shawls, hats and gloves and many others.
Lei-Lei is committed to handmade products meeting the principles of fair trade and it carries products that benefit the planet and are renewable, sustainable and recycled – allowing consumers to shop guilt-free for cool items that support worthy causes.
Lei-Lei also contributes through a portion of its sales and donations to organizations such as VNA (Visiting Nurse Association), Bernards PEC (Parents of Exceptional Children), Hearts for Honduras (child education support and sponsorship), More than Me, PBA, PTO events, Heartworks and The Unatti Foundation, etc.
Read the full transcript here
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- Twitter @leileimaria
- Facebook @LeiLei.net
- LinkedIn in/Maria-Murphy
- Instagram @leileinepal
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