About Claire Barnhoorn

I am a technology founder and systems builder working where impact money, procurement and real economies meet. Over more than twenty years, my work has moved from frontline humanitarian operations to building digital market infrastructure across humanitarian assistance, global health, sustainability, energy and preparedness. The connecting question has remained the same: how can the way money is spent leave stronger organisations, suppliers and markets behind?

That question began much earlier. I was six when Ethiopia’s great famine was at its height. On the wall of my classroom was a poster for a charity run, showing two small boys 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 Jopie can buy food and they won’t be hungry anymore.”

Ethy and Jopie were not their real names. But the injustice they represented was real. More than 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, logistics, public health and global supply chains, including with Médecins Sans Frontières, NGOs and UN agencies across Africa, Asia and Europe.

This was work in which impact was never abstract. Someone had to identify the right products, find capable suppliers, move goods across difficult environments and make responsible decisions under pressure. But I also began to see the systems behind those individual decisions and the same problems kept recurring.

Enormous amounts of money and effort move through aid, health and other impact-driven systems. Yet local organisations and suppliers often remain excluded, market knowledge disappears when programmes end and the same infrastructure is rebuilt project by project.

We respond to immediate needs, but too rarely ask what our spending leaves behind. That insight changed the direction of my work. I became interested not only in what a programme delivers, but in what kind of market its money helps to create.

From field experience to market infrastructure

I founded Solvoz to build the digital infrastructure behind fairer, more transparent and resilient markets. Solvoz enables organisations to discover suppliers, define what they need, run sourcing processes and make accountable purchasing decisions.

Today, the technology supports initiatives across humanitarian assistance, global health, sustainability, energy and other impact-driven sectors. These may appear to be different markets, but they share a common challenge: ambitious commitments still have to travel through suppliers, contracts and purchasing decisions before they become real-world outcomes.

Through Solvoz Foundation, which I chair, we advance the public-benefit side of that mission: open procurement knowledge, fairer market access and practical support for non-profit organisations and local suppliers. Mawared MENA demonstrates what this can look like regionally. It combines shared digital infrastructure with local coordination, supplier visibility and procurement support across the Middle East and North Africa.

A few reference points

  • 20+ years across humanitarian operations, health and global supply chains
  • Africa, Asia and Europe operational and strategic experience
  • Founder and CEO of Solvoz
  • Chair of Solvoz Foundation
  • ImpactFest 2024 Best Innovation Award
  • ERP Today Awards 2025 Runner-Up for Mawared MENA
  • Speaker during the WEF, at HNPW, IPSERA, NEVI and the African Logistics Conference

Across my work, I keep returning to the systems behind impact: how capital becomes contracts, how markets distribute opportunity and how procurement decisions shape resilience, inclusion and sustainability.

My work increasingly brings me into conversations across philanthropy, impact investment, global health, preparedness, climate, energy and sustainable supply chains. I am particularly interested in the overlooked space between committing money to an ambition and building the practical infrastructure needed to achieve it.

At home in the Netherlands, I am raising two inquisitive sons who constantly ask 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 often begins with refusing to accept that existing systems are inevitable.

I am still running for Ethy and Jopie, just with better tools now. 

Let's connect

I welcome conversations with organisations, funders, investors, businesses and policymakers working to turn ambitious commitments into stronger markets and practical systems.

You can explore my writing, learn more about my speaking or contact me directly.