Brooke Franklin, General Manager of The TOM CO , began the chat by filling us in on their recent activation for TOM Organic at Byron Bay Splendour In The Grass Festival – they are definitely doing things differently! Years ago a tampon and pad activation would have been cut from the festival circuit sponsor list, today it was highly successful activation that was embraced by the Splendor sponsorship team and festival goers.

They’re a company that is striving to create change. They’re all about instilling confidence in young girls by banishing the stigma around female personal care products. Aimee Marks founded the company with that very goal in mind – ‘to solve the problem of tampons falling out of a handbag and creating embarrassment.’

It’s crazy to think that such a completely natural event in a young woman’s life has any type of stigma or embarrassment attached to it but thankfully it’s slowly changing with more open dialogue in schools and in the marketing campaigns, like TOMs, that we see today.

The brand began its journey from humble beginnings, where Founder, Aimee Marks, was originally gifted 10K to get her high school initiative off the ground. Today, the company continues to support female founders by running a program called ‘Pitch For Purpose’. They create a platform for a 5 or so female-led businesses who are striving to create a safer, healthier world. Then one is selected and TOMs provides funding and support, just as they had been given in the early days.

We hope you enjoy this chat with Brooke as she takes us through The TOM CO company, the initiatives and employee structure they have created to properly support women in the workforce.