Marie So and Carol Chyau

Founders of Shokay 

Marie So and Carol Chyau are two examples of social innovators, who started a company called Shokay, in China. Marie was born in Hong Kong and Carol in Taiwan. They have both a number of degrees and have worked in both the private and public sector (UN).

The company was born while they attended Harvard University. In the process of studying International Development, Marie and Carol brainstormed on ways to utilize their education and talents to build businesses that could impact poor regions. Both of them having spent most of their lives in Asia the natural choice was China, a country with increasingly severe income disparity, where many inland regions suffer from poverty and lack of access to markets.

During their winter break, Carol and Marie travelled to Western regions of China to investigate the needs and resources of the people living there and look for ways to help.

They found an abundant resource of yaks and a NGO partner - China Exploration and Research Society. This is what they did:

Shokay is a social enterprise started with one cause; "to identify the right opportunities that could impact impoverished regions in China…" The opportunity presented itself in a thick coat of hair, the fur of the massive Tibetan Yak, which is an outstanding resource for fabrics and yarn that equals the quality of cashmere and mohair. Now, Shokay, the Tibetan word for Yak, sells luxury fibre collected in the inlands by local nomadic herders and processed by a number of hand knitters near Shanghai. 

The philosophy of Shokay is to acknowledge the producing communities by reinvesting parts of the profit in the local community. As the company grows the funds that they reinvest grow equally. The funds ensure the development of the communities. By reinvesting in the communities Shokay not only ensures a sustainable living for the herders but also creates a platform that enables the communities to break free from poverty. 

The second step in the supply chain of Shokay is the knitting of the products, which is based on an island close to Shanghai. The female knitters are all local and work in near proximity of their homes.  

To increase the empowerment of the people in the remote regions of West China, Shokay works to promote Yak fibre as a luxury fabric on the international scene to quality stamp and brand the material, thereby increasing market value and securing the herders an even better price. 

The more Shokay grows, the more the conditions of the financially disadvantaged communities improve.