Can You Love a Company Enough to Leave It | Kathy Walkling | Co Founder | The Eco Femme

Kathy Walkling is the co founder of Eco Femme, a woman led social enterprise that helped introduce washable cloth pads to India. But this conversation is not simply about sustainable menstrual products. It is about building something with your whole heart, watching it become bigger than you, and eventually accepting that it may need to continue without you. Kathy shares how a personal waste problem in Auroville became an idea that created livelihoods for rural women and reached users across 27 countries. We talk about the resistance Eco Femme faced, the cultural beliefs surrounding menstruation, and the challenge of communicating one unfamiliar product to rural communities, urban consumers, NGOs, and international markets. We also get into the part of founder life that is rarely discussed. The market changed, digital growth accelerated, new products appeared, and Kathy and her co founder realised that Eco Femme needed leadership with skills and energy they no longer had. Handing it over was emotional, imperfect, and at times so difficult that closing the organisation felt like the only option. Kathy speaks honestly about exhaustion, relationships that changed, and the courage it took for members of the team to step forward. Thank you, Kathy Walkling, for sharing this story with so much honesty. What you and the Eco Femme team built goes far beyond a product. It changed livelihoods, conversations, and the way many women understood their bodies. You can learn more about Eco Femme through its official website and social channels, and follow Kathy to see where her next chapter takes her. #EcoFemme #KathyWalkling #SocialEnterprise #SustainableBusiness #MenstrualHealth #ReusablePads #WomenEntrepreneurs #PurposeDrivenBusiness #FounderStory #Sustainability #Auroville #IndianStartups #CircularEconomy #D2C #ChaiNetPodcast