Rebecca van Bergen

Rebecca van Bergen is the Founder and Executive Director of Nest, a nonprofit building a new handworker economy to advance global workforce inclusivity, women’s wellbeing beyond factories, and cultural preservation. She graduated with her Masters Degree in Social Work from Washington University in 2006, the same year that Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in microfinance. Following her passion to turn craft, the 2nd largest employer of women globally, into a means to correct the gender and income imbalance in our world, she founded Nest at age 24.

More than 12 years later, with no background in the fashion and home design industries, van Bergen leads an organization that is partnering with brand leaders such as West Elm, Target, Patagonia, PVH, and Eileen Fisherto improve transparency, social wellbeing, and economic opportunity for handworkers who include both artisans and less skilled manual laborers. In December of 2017 at the United Nations, van Bergen led Nest to launch the Nest Standards for Homes and Small Workshops, delivering the industry a standardized tool for improving rights and wellbeing for the world’s estimated 300 million home- based workers (ILO). The program is accompanied by a Nest Seal, designed to let consumers know that the products they shop have been ethically handcrafted. In 2018, Nest’s work reached a population of 160,000 handworkers across 92 countries, driving both social and economic impact.

In 2017, van Bergen joined the distinguished class of World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders and was selected by Ashoka as an honored Ashoka Fellow. In 2016, Nest received Ashoka and C&A Foundation’s Fabric of Change Award. She is a Levi Strauss & Co. Collaboratory Fellow, Draper Richards Kaplan Fellow, Cordes Fellow, and GLG Social Impact Fellow. In 2015 and 2016, van Bergen received complimentary Clinton Global Initiative membership. She is regularly quoted in international media outlets including Fast Company, The New York Times, WSJ, Quartz, ELLE, Glamour and more. She has been spotlighted by the New York mayor’s office as an NYC Catalyst and has also been honored as a PBS Changemaker, a CNN Young Person Who Rocks, and one of the White Houses’s Top 100 Entrepreneurial Enterprises led by a young person.