Helen McEachern steps down as CEO

After five and a half transformational years running the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, Helen McEachern will be stepping down as CEO in July. We are delighted to congratulate Helen on her exciting new role as Chief Executive of CARE International UK. 

Helen joined the Foundation as CEO in 2017. Her ambitious and authentic leadership has enabled a tenfold increase in the number of women entrepreneurs we support each year.  We have successfully achieved our 100,000 Women Campaign as a result. Other achievements include:

• Gold accreditation of our sector-leading Mentoring Women in Business programme. 
• Developed and scaled the now award winning HerVenture business learning app. 
• Full online delivery of services during the COVID-19 pandemic. 
• Critical research with women entrepreneurs to inform our work and the wider sector. 
• Advocacy to put women’s entrepreneurship on the global policy agenda. 
• Income growth and multi-year partnerships, such as with USAID, DHL Express and PayPal. 

The Foundation will be recruiting a new CEO to lead the organisation and deliver our new Ready for Business strategy that will guide our work to 2026 and our goal of reaching one million women entrepreneurs by 2030. 

Helen McEachern, CEO, Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, says: “It has been a great privilege to lead the Foundation. To support women entrepreneurs to build their businesses, find their voices and reach their goals, has been both humbling and inspiring. I have no doubt that with our incredible partners around the world the Foundation’s important work to provide relevant gendered services for women’s entrepreneurship will go from strength to strength. I leave especially proud that the Foundation has embraced a feminist perspective, and a commitment to always put women entrepreneurs at the heart of its work.” 

Dr. Mathias Terheggen, Chair, Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, says: “A truly visionary leader, skilful executive and great people person, Helen has built an enormous legacy of impact, having continuously grown our capacity to best support women entrepreneurs. She leaves behind a strong organisation as we look ahead with excitement to delivering our new strategy. Working with her has been a privilege and it gives me great joy to see her success being rightfully recognised. I wish her much luck in her new role.”  

Cherie Blair CBE KC, Founder, Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, says: “I am incredibly thankful for Helen’s tireless, dedicated work to support women entrepreneurs and drive towards global economic gender justice. As CEO she has enabled fantastic impact for over 100,000 women and their businesses, and has played a pivotal role in pressing for change to stop women everywhere from being held back as business owners. I will miss her terribly.”