Harriet Lamb

Who is Harriet Lamb?

Harriet Lamb is a leading campaigner for fair trade and the Chief Executive Officer of the global standards, certification and producer development organisation, Fairtrade International, a role she took on in September 2012. Prior to that, she was Executive Director of the United Kingdom Fairtrade Foundation from 2001-2012. She was born in England, lived in India as a child and then grew up and was educated in the UK, taking a first degree in political science at Cambridge University and an MPhil at the Sussex Institute of Development Studies.

She has lived over six years in India including time working with poor landless labourers and with a cooperative of low-caste "untouchable" farmers selling grapes.

She joined the Fairtrade Foundation after two years with Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International, the Fairtrade umbrella body with responsibility for Fairtrade standards globally, in Bonn, Germany. Under her leadership, Fairtrade has become one of Britain's most active grassroots social movements. In 2008, sales of Fairtrade topped £700 million, with over 4,500 Fairtrade products available from cotton to coffee, face-cream to ice-cream.