Board Member

Lawren Askinosie

Job Title:

• Co-Owner & Chief Marketing Officer at Askinosie Chocolate

Experience: Lawren owns and operates Askinosie Chocolate, an internationally acclaimed chocolate manufacturer known for pioneering Direct Trade in the chocolate industry. Along with her father, Lawren partners with smallholder cocoa farmers across the globe–and shares profits with them–to make their award-winning chocolate, and works directly with those farmers on community development initiatives in their communities. Some of those initiatives include an Empowered Girls and Enlightened Boys program in rural Tanzania, building and operating a preschool, and sustainably providing over 1 million meals to malnourished students in the cocoa farming communities. Lawren is proud to be the only chocolate manufacturer working directly with woman-led farmer groups, and regularly works to champion women cocoa farmers, as well as womens’ rights both in her advocacy work. Also a published author and speaker, Lawren loves to share the story of her family’s business and train other organizations in their model of doing a lot with a little; and that doing good doesn’t have to mean sacrificing profits. In addition to her work with Girls Empowerment Network, Lawren also serves on the board of The Askinosie Foundation. Lawren is a wife, and proud mama to a very vocal toddler daughter, Goldie.

What I love about Girls Empowerment Network: I believe deeply in Girls Empowerment Network’s mission to ignite the power in girls to believe in themselves, because an empowered girl is an empowered community, and world.

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