Portrait No. 001
Cleo Escarez
Founder & CEO
Redyoos
Raised — Currently in a raise
Redyoos began with a truth I could no longer ignore. Chief Seattle said, “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children,” and after years in the fashion and accessories industry, I felt like there were two or three landfills with my name on them. Watching my children grow up in a world shaped by climate instability and inequity made that weight unbearable. I knew our cities were sitting on an urban mine—precious metals discarded in plain sight while global supplies shrink. Redyoos exists to correct that injustice. We recover high‑purity metals from pre‑loved jewelry, keep them in circulation, and turn waste streams into resilient domestic supply chains to support clean tech and ai revolution. Besides the fact that I have domain expertise, I’ve lived the gaps, I understand the stakes, and I refuse to leave my children—or anyone’s—with a system we had the power to redesign.
In her words
“Building a business shouldn't cost us our future. At Redyoos, I’m proving that profit and planetary protection can coexist. We aren't just recycling jewelry; we are honoring the resources we already have to build a sustainable world for the generations coming next”
Chapter I
The toughest challenges you've faced as a founder.
I’ve faced tough challenges as a founder and they sit at the crossroads of identity, motherhood, and the \"bamboo ceiling\" I’ve been pushing against my entire career. As a female, immigrant, recovering corporate executive, I wasn’t groomed to build a climate‑tech company—especially not one redefining how America sources critical materials. I’ve been underestimated in rooms I earned my way into, second‑guessed in meetings I was leading, and told my vision was “too ambitious” more times than I can count. And like so many mothers, I’ve taken investor calls from school parking lots because the work doesn’t pause for childcare. But those barriers forged my resilience. When people questioned whether a woman of color could scale an urban‑mining company, My company became an Earthshot Prize nominee in 2025 and I delivered a TEDx talk on circularity and community resilience. When partners hesitated, I built traction with community organizations who saw the vision. And even while scaling a startup, I make time to serve on the board of a nonprofit supporting refugee women—because lifting others is part of the climb, not a distraction from it. The truth is, underestimated founders don’t just endure obstacles—we turn them into fuel and build what others said was impossible.
Chapter II
Your vision.
I’m obsessed with solving one problem: we’re burying the very materials our future depends on. I believe the largest untapped mines aren’t underground—they’re sitting in our jewelry boxes. Every forgotten chain or broken earring holds precious metals that took enormous environmental and human cost to extract, yet we treat them as disposable. That waste is both a climate issue and a social one: communities bear the burden of mining’s pollution while missing out on the economic value of the materials already around us. My vision is a world where we stop digging deeper and start looking closer. Redyoos will help build that world by turning pre‑loved jewelry into a domestic supply of critical materials, reducing mining, strengthening communities, and creating local jobs. When we recover what we already have, we build an economy that protects the planet and honors the generations coming after us.
Chapter III
The impact you want to leave behind — for your industry, your community, and the women who come next.
I want my legacy to be that I helped people see value where they once saw trash — that mining our own damn jewelry boxes became common sense before tearing up another eco-system or continuing to exploit labor. If thirty years from now folks say, “She changed how we treat the planet and each other,” that’s the win. I want circularity to feel like a lifestyle, not a lecture. And if future founders, especially the ones who never felt invited into the room— feel braver to dream big because I built something real and unapologetically mine, that’s the legacy I’m claiming. Hopefully it's also the kind of thing that earns me bragging rights with my children at family dinner.