Simon Griffiths Travels from PRAHRAN, VIC

Topics

Business
Business Success
C E O / M D
Entrepreneur

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Simon is an engineer and economist turned social entrepreneur. In 2007, after turning down his dream job offer as a corporate high-flyer, he moved from Australia to South Africa to immerse himself in his true passion: development aid. There he discovered that the biggest problem faced by NGOs and social entrepreneurs is a lack of funding.

Driven by a passion to use business to give back, in 2010, Simon had the idea to start a toilet paper company that builds toilets in the developing world. In 2012, he launched Who Gives A Crap with a crowdfunding campaign, agreeing to sit on a toilet on a live webfeed until he had pre-sold the first $50,000 of toilet rolls. The multi-award winning launch attracted global media attention and generated over $1 million of PR value.

Since launching, Who Gives A Crap has tripled in size year-on-year, primarily relying on word-of-mouth to fuel its growth. In five years, Who Gives A Crap has donated more than $1 million.

Simon is also well known as the co-founder of Shebeen, a non-profit bar in Melbourne’s CBD that opened in February 2013 and ran for 3.5 years. Shebeen sold exotic beer and wine from the developing world, with 100% of the profit from each sale going to a development project in that drink’s country of origin.

Simon is one of Australia’s most prominent social entrepreneurs. His work has been covered by countless media outlets around the world, including The Huffington Post, MTV and The Stanford Social Innovation Review.

Keynote Titles

The Business of Making a Difference
Business: Failing leads to Success
Innovation: Everyone's doing it, but we're doing it different
Be Bold and Make it Happen
Lessons from Running a Purpose-led Business

Testimonials

Simon was very engaging from the beginning and a great way to finish off the conference. The audience was very inspired and enjoyed his message. Some delegates even signed up to order toilet paper from Who Gives a Crap

Peel Chamber Of Commerce & Industry Inc.

Just a note of thanks for the great presentation you gave at our recent INNOV8 function. I have had great feedback from everything about your engaging presentation nature to the awesome innovations you have worked to deliver, to your passion for making a difference. I am stoked you got everyone talking and provided a memorable presentation to our Innovation community.

Coca-Cola Amatil

Simon was very inspirational in his talk at the Big Friday of Social Entrepreneurship at MGSM. He shared the highs and lows of being social entrepreneurs very openly, while also being highly engaging and entertaining. He then took the time to engage with the students, which they found very helpful. Thank you for a great talk!

Macquarie University