Karen Lynch is the CEO of leading UK social enterprise Belu. Belu service the hotel, restaurant and grocery sector with mineral water and sets the environmental benchmark in its industry.  All Belu profits go to WaterAid and since the partnership was formed in 2011 over £1m of profits have been donated transforming 66,000 lives so far.

Karen transitioned from the corporate sector having previously worked as a magazine publisher for Emap and more recently as retail and brand specialist for Audi and Barclays. She has an obsession with ‘finding out what you are good at, and doing something good with it’. She has used her obsession with waste to  drive Belu’s innovation agenda and as a result formed Ethical Glass – a supply chain joint venture bring the lightest bottle to the UK market.

Karen has led Belu to numerous awards including  being recognised as a Coolbrand (voted by UK consumers and panel), Social enterprise brand of the Year 2014, Finance for the Future – Social Enterprise of the Year, RBS SE100 – Resilience Award 2014 and the SMARTA Breakthrough 50. Karen has also been personally recognised with awards from the People and Environment Achievement Awards as Business Person of the Year 2012, EY Entrepreneur of the Year finalist in 2013 and is extremely proud to work part time and feature on The Timewise TOP 50 part timers in the UK.  In addition to Belu, she currently mentors several UK social enterprise start up’s in addition to being a wife and mother to two dogs, two teenage girls and Paddington, her horse.