Sophia Swire

Sophia Swire is a British social entrepreneur and impact venture capitalist with a focus on gender, climate and sustainability.

Early life Sophia Swire is the daughter of Humphrey Roger Swire, a director of Sotheby's, and descendant of Sir John Swire. Through her mother, Philippa, The Dowager Marchioness Townshend, daughter of Colonel George Jardine Kidston Montgomerie of Southannan who married secondly George Townshend, 7th Marquess Townshend, she is descended from William the Conqueror, Mary, Queen of Scots and Oliver Cromwell. She has three brothers: Mark, Philip and Hugo Swire, Baron Swire,

Career In the late 1980s, Swire worked in the City of London in equity analysis and for Kleinwort Benson in institutional equity sales.

In 1990, she became noted for selling pashmina shawls through her sustainable fashion brand, after seeing them worn by Bollywood stars at a fund-raising benefit of Imran Khan's in Lahore, then finding a source for the shawls at a Himalayan workshop in Nepal. This established over 200 schools for girls in rural Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India, an achievement for which she was awarded the 2010 Award for Empowering Women in Pakistan.

In 2008, at the invitation of Rory Stewart and the Turquoise Mountain Foundation, she returned to Afghanistan to establish a school for jewellers and gem-cutters at Turquoise Mountain. The first students graduated in 2010.

In 2010, Swire became the senior gemstones advisor to the Afghan Ministry of Mines and Petroleum, with funding from the World Bank.

In 2012, Swire established Future Brilliance, non-profit offering workplace skills and enterprise development training with a focus on Afghan women. She worked to revive the jewellery industry in gemstone-rich areas of Afghanistan. Future Brilliance successfully delivered the first Digital Literacy training project in Afghanistan, in 2013, funded by the Canadian Fund for Local Initiatives (CFLI).

In October 2013, Swire was announced as a Conservative candidate in the European Parliament election of 2014 in South West England and Gibraltar, together with Ashley Fox, Julie Girling, James Cracknell, Georgina Butler, and Melissa Maynard. The names were confirmed when nominations were lodged in April 2014. Swire said during the campaign that her financial background would enable her to get value for money from the European Union for causes in the region and for protecting the United Kingdom as Europe's principal financial centre. She also wished to develop policy to address the growing refugee crisis and tackle the rise of radical extremism.

Swire created and produced the documentary film, Burning Man: Art on Fire. She co-produced the BBC Inside Story film, Smoke Rings. She also produced the Channel Four documentary Mr Jinnah: the Making of Pakistan. On behalf of Global Witness, she contributed to the first Natural Resource Charter.

In 2015, she spoke at the United Nations in New York on Women's Entrepreneurship Day.