Meet our 2023 Elevate Female Founders Program Cohort

Introducing the 2023 Elevate Female Founders Program cohort – a remarkable group of driven and innovative entrepreneurs.

Throughout the 12 month program, the founders will receive invaluable mentoring, support, learning and resources to enhance their capability and expand their ventures as they lead the way towards a brighter future for entrepreneurship.

The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) is supporting seven women involved in agrifood and beverage enterprises from the metropolitan area and the regions to participate in the program.

Now let’s take a minute and get to know the founders!

Brittany Toledo | Yokefellow

Brittany is a Midwife turned Female Founder and is on a mission to reshape women’s health through innovation.

Her fem-tech startup Yokefellow focuses on empowering women throughout their prenatal journey by taking the guesswork out of prenatal vitamins. They offer women a flexible monthly subscription of curated prenatal vitamin packs that provide targeted nutrition to support and promote the nutritional well-being of each stage of the prenatal journey, from preconception to pregnancy and beyond.

Hazel Duffy | Enjoy Your Mine

EnjoyYourMine aims to “reinvent and uplift the mining camps experience, reputation, community and environment to reach optimal performance, connection, enjoyment and life purpose for miners onsite, through self-development workshops such as financial wellness, well-being psychology, vitality and cultural engagement classes.

It was created when the founder Hazel Duffy, a young female migrant from the West of Ireland & former miner, had an on-site mining injury as a blast operator due to the psychosocial issues in the working culture environment which has unfortunately refrained her from returning back to full physical health.

Grace Mugabe | Financially Empowered

Financially Empowered is on a mission to equip women, migrants and other under-represented groups with financial literacy skills.

Financially Empowered specialises in narrowing the financial information divide that acutely impacts minorities. Our mission is to enhance the earning potential and financial infrastructure for women and migrants. They accomplish this through financial literacy workshops, providing CFO services tailored for women in business, and offering personalised money coaching sessions.

Their award-winning program, Migrant Money Matters, is designed to cater to the unique requirements of migrant women, ensuring they thrive financially.

Grace Mugabe CPA is a financial literacy expert, experienced Management Accountant and CEO of Financially Empowered, a for-purpose enterprise that empowers women by equipping them with financial literacy skills.

Nur-Irdah Halik | fempowered social

fempowered social is a social media agency for women, owned and run by a woman. They are all about giving female small business owners the tools, knowledge and confidence to succeed in business.

Nur started the business in 2020 having worked in marketing and PR since she was 19, including working for local government, an arts not-for-profit, an overseas tourism department and a national charity.

Elizabeth Knight | No Code Odyssey

No Code Odyssey exists to empower entrepreneurs and creators to bring their ideas for websites, applications and other technology solutions to life without writing a single line of code! Through our online academy and coaching services, we’ll help you leverage the best no code technologies to develop your idea, for 10-100x faster and cheaper than traditional software development. Since our inception in 2022, we’ve helped 40+ businesses from industries including health tech, legal tech, education, real estate and more to level up using no code.

Co-founded by Elizabeth Knight, a 24-year-old with a big dream to transform our education and how we prepare young people for their futures! Elizabeth is also the founder of Purposeful, a social enterprise helping young people to find their place in the world and careers they are passionate about.

Katherine Kwee | Keep Keto

Keep Keto was born when Katherine Kwee was struggling with weight loss and found the Keto diet to be highly effective, not only for losing the weight to get to her healthy size, but in keeping it that way with minimal effort. As long as she had her homemade snacks prepared she could continue with Keto, but meal prep is hard!

As a pharmacist, it pained her to see people struggle with their weight-loss journey and she wanted to share her love of keto (and her snacks!) with the world!

Mette Nielsen | Mette is Baking

Mette is the founder, the owner and the CEO of Mette is Baking.

At “Mette is Baking” they bake Australia’s most moreish crackers and provide Australian Gourmet customers (retail and food services and now direct to consumer) with delicious and locally hand-made and hand packed freshly baked to order award winning Nordic Crackers that cater for many with food allergies and/or preferences.

After 8 years of selling crackers wholesale to retail and food services customers in Western Australia Mette is Baking have launched two new initiatives.

A Nordic inspired dip mix range to complement our crackers
An online store to enable the consumer to buy directly from us and have fresh baked crackers shipped directly to their table.

Sharon Edkins | CoCoMe

Australian made, Australian owned – CoCoMe offers a range of innovative probiotic foods.

Scientifically formulated and made from coconut, CoCoMe is lovingly handmade by Sharon in Western Australia – who personally ensures the quality and consistency of each batch. With just five key ingredients, CoCoMe is a 100% plant based, dairy free, affordable and a delicious probiotic coconut food for all to enjoy.

With her scientific and medical background, Sharon’s passion for research and healthy eating, she soon realised many people don’t understand the gut brain connection, using food as medicine or what clean eating really means.

Setting out on her new and innovative journey, Sharon’s passion became her purpose – to share her knowledge and experiences with others to help them lead a healthy and happy life and encourage people to seek healthy alternatives that don’t cost the earth.

Fiona Mann| BLOCK 275

BLOCK 275 produces Cold Pressed Canola Oil from the GM-free canola sustainably grown and harvested on the Mann’s property ‘Midoxgate’, located at Eradu in the Mid West of WA. Each batch is simply cold pressed, hand bottled and labelled. No solvents, hexanes or heat. No bleaches or deodorising.

Fiona Mann is a Mullewa Farmer and Partner of Mann Farming Co – a farming business and agricultural contracting business. She is also the Co-founder of BLOCK 275 – a value-add food business producing Cold Pressed Canola Oil. Fiona has a Bachelor of Science (NRM) with an agronomy background, and is the Field Walk Coordinator for the Mullewa Dryland Farmers Initiative.

Sarah James-Martin| Wines of Merritt

Wines of Merritt make small batch, low-intervention wines in Margaret River with left of centre varieties & techniques, with a light touch, using wild yeast and avoiding fining and filtering.

Sarah James-Martin, is a 50% shareholder in her family business Wines of Merritt and recently, distilled a couple of barrels of their Chenin Blanc to make the base for Oceanic Gin. And subsequently founded Merritt distilling – our wine, our spirit.