Who is Claire
Since a charity poster for Ethiopia in first grade, I have been driven by one simple question: why do some people have so many opportunities, while others struggle to meet their most basic needs.
I was six when Ethiopia’s great famine was at its height. On the wall of my classroom there was a poster for a charity run, showing two small boys with round bellies, standing hand in hand in the dust. I remember coming home and telling my parents, “I have to run, and you have to pay me. Then Ethy and Jopy can buy food and they won’t be hungry anymore.” Of course, Ethy and Jopy were not real. But the injustice they represented was.
Nearly forty years later, I know those boys had many different names, in many different countries. I went on to spend more than two decades working across humanitarian operations, public and health supply chains, and global systems, including with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), NGOs and UN agencies across Africa, Asia and Europe.
What I kept seeing was the same pattern: enormous amounts of money and effort flow through these systems, yet local economies and suppliers remain fragile. We respond to crises, but we rarely build markets that last.
That insight changed the direction of my work.
I founded Solvoz, a Dutch female founded technology company that builds digital market infrastructure for impact driven economies. Through Solvoz we enable governments, donors, NGOs and companies to buy, source and invest in ways that strengthen local suppliers, improve transparency and turn spending into long term economic capacity. In simple terms, we build the digital plumbing that allows capital to become contracts, and contracts to become functioning, resilient markets.
Today Solvoz powers multiple sector platforms across global health, humanitarian response, energy and sustainability. Our work has been recognised with awards such as The Hague Innovator 2024, and through partnerships with NGOs, UN agencies and private sector actors working to change how money moves through real economies.
Alongside this, I regularly speak and write about procurement as a system lever, how the way we buy, contract and invest quietly shapes resilience, inclusion and climate outcomes. You will often find me in spaces where technology, finance and real world markets meet, including forums like the World Economic Forum, global health and supply chain conferences.
At home in the Netherlands, I am raising two inquisitive sons who constantly ask me “why”. Why is this fair? Why does it work this way? Why don’t we do it differently? Their questions remind me that system change always starts with refusing to accept the world as it is.
I am still running for Ethy and Jopy, just with better tools now.
If you care about turning capital into functioning markets, moving beyond aid into economic resilience, or using technology to build fairer global economies, I’d love to connect.