Safia Minney

Safia started her career in marketing and publishing. She worked for Creative Review magazine for four years.

After backpacking alone for three months between Bali and Myanmar, Minney created her own social marketing consultancy working with New Statesman and Friends of the Earth. In 1990, Minney moved to Tokyo with her husband where she learnt Japanese before working for a publishing company, Amnesty International, and eventually the Body Shop.[4]

Safia started an environmental campaigning voluntary group called Global Village in Japan which focused on all aspects of sustainable living. With students and friends, Minney began producing and publishing an organic listings – the ‘green’ information she believed people needed to live a more sustainable lifestyle.

Safia and the team at Global Village started to design and sell Fair Trade products at festivals around Japan and soon started to get requests from stockists. In 1995 Fair Trade Company was formed as a limited company by transferring the fair trading activity to a new company called People Tree. A shop was opened in the fashionable Jiyugaoka district, in Tokyo and in 1996 it became a member of WFTO, the World Fair Trade Organization. Fair Trade Company operated from the Minney's home for nine years, gradually occupying more space than their new family. By 2000 it had grown to 17 staff members co-ordinating product design, Fair Trade and sustainable supply chain development, sales and marketing, events and campaigns; it was time to take a commercial office space.

In 2000 the name 'People Tree' was registered as the trading name for Fair Trade Company in London.

In 2014 People Tree became the first company to be awarded the World Fair Trade Organisation Fair Trade product label with an international sales turnover of £8m. WFTO labelling is intended to guarantees People Tree’s compliance to the Principles of Fair Trade, covering fair wages, working conditions, transparency, capacity building, environmental best practice, gender equality and setting standards for conventional fashion companies to improve their supply chains. Ten years ago People Tree launched the first clothing range to meet the Global Organic Textile Standard certified by the Soil Association in the so-called developing world. Safia initiated World Fair Trade Day with WFTO.

Safia and the team worked with many designers, celebrities and influencers such as Emma Watson, Dame Zandra Rhodes and Bora Aksu to mainstream the concept of sustainable and fair fashion and build its profile. Safia left the business as Global CEO at the end of 2015 to pursue new projects.