Meet Garnish

Meet Lauren.

With a strong passion for learning by doing, Lauren Henderson lived and worked in 23 different countries, to survey market conditions and be immersed in culture, understand nuances, and integrated herself within communities. This allowed for deep analysis and evaluation of market potential. With a core motivation to have this solution powered by people, she garnered thousands of individuals’ input to birth this engaged learning solution for Africa by Africa. 

Then expand that ‘solution’ to uplift individuals, communities and developing countries.

Going the distance.

The journey in the hospitality industry for Lauren started in high school at a female-owned catering company. As she served the masses, she was mentored and got introduced to hospitality on a large scale. Through this unofficial mentorship, Lauren was given the foundational tools for what she does today. Even more importantly, her mentor showed her that being a woman should not limit your dreams and ambitions. In college, Lauren continued on to other roles – server, bartender and restaurant manager. Post-college she jumped into the depths of Corporate America and transitioned to the supply side of the industry.

Spending 10-years at Campari, her diverse roles led her to live and work throughout the USA, giving her a national perspective for developing brands, as well as navigating the diversity across markets. Even after being the ‘first woman to do… fill in the blank’, in her roles in the U.S, Lauren’s ambitions were global. She boldly left corporate life without a safety net. With confidence in her skills and unwavering drive, knowing this would translate anywhere, she traveled and made the leap.  

 After 5 years overseas, bringing her recent experience in entrepreneurship, Lauren realized the startup world was where she wanted to put her energy. She sought to continue collaborating with like-minded brands and the people behind them, those changemakers challenging the norms, fighting to break through and daring to do it differently.

Opportunity meets expertise.

Lauren’s quest continued as she worked across 23 counties throughout the Middle East and Africa, learning the route to market of CPG products, the cultural aspects of each region and how that translated to brands.  In these developing markets, industries face challenging economic and infrastructure conditions. Employee education isn’t evenly distributed, and resources for improving customer service aren’t readily accessible. Learning also that transportation and access to WIFI are limiting factors to implementation of employee education and training.

Lauren’s work experience on the continent, specifically within the wine and spirits industry, uncovered the opportunity. A key discovery was the opportunity to integrate technology to meet the needs of the people. With Africa leading the world in the usage of mobile tech, she saw the lack of distribution. She applied this expertise and learnings into a solution that would overcome these challenges.

Hence, Garnish was born.

Garnish is an effective mobile-first, smartphone APP to link interactive training and education to customer service, job satisfaction and performance.