Sarah Kauss

Current Company

S'well — Founder & CEO

Turning a Water Bottle Into a Movement

Sarah Kauss founded S'well in 2010 after watching the documentary An Inconvenient Truth and deciding to tackle single-use plastic at the consumer level. Her insight was that reusable water bottles failed not because people didn't care about sustainability, but because the products available were ugly. She designed a sleek, insulated bottle that people would actually want to carry — and it worked.

S'well bottles became a cultural phenomenon, appearing in offices, gyms, and college campuses across the country. Kauss grew the company without outside funding for the first several years, maintaining full control while scaling to hundreds of millions in revenue. S'well donated a portion of proceeds to UNICEF's clean water programs, linking each purchase to a broader mission.

Design as a Sustainability Strategy

Sarah Kauss proved that sustainability products could succeed by being desirable first and eco-friendly second. S'well expanded into food containers, tumblers, and home goods — all built around the same principle of combining fashion-forward design with functional performance and environmental benefit.

Kauss's approach influenced an entire generation of sustainable consumer brands. Her success demonstrated that consumers would pay a premium for well-designed, mission-driven products — a lesson that reshaped how brands across categories think about sustainability, design, and purpose-driven marketing.