About Sarika

Official Bio

Sarika is a United Nations official turned Forbes-featured Entrepreneur, on a mission to preserve the 2000-year-old declining craft of Japanese Sake.

She is a certified Japanese Sake Scholar, Sake Competition Judge, and Sake Educator, and the Founder of an award-winning, 100% natural, Sake-infused green beauty brand, the Sake Beauty Balm, winner of the European Natural Beauty Awards 2024. She is also an online course creator with over 11,000 students enrolled globally, and now helps other women wanting to start a freedom business with soul and purpose.

Sarika has lived and worked in 14 countries in 4 continents — Africa, Asia, Europe, North America — and travelled to over 60.

Prior to entrepreneurship, Sarika worked with the United Nations in Asia and Africa on gender equality and sustainable urban development for a decade, with postings to Vietnam, Kenya, and Thailand, after completing her Master of Science at the London School of Economics and joining the UN through its Recruitment Exam.

She has been interviewed by Forbes and various podcasts worldwide on entrepreneurship, Sake, gender, green beauty, and career change.

Sarika is appointed as Doburoku Ambassador in Japan and has collaborated with the MIT Japan Program, Harvard Business School’s Asian American Business Association, and the Polish Vodka Museum. She serves as an official Competition Judge for the Tokyo Whiskey & Spirits Competition, Féminalise World Wine Competition (France), World Sake Sommelier Competition, and the Japan Women’s Sake Awards.

She was selected for the first cohort of the EU Female Entrepreneurs Fellowship and the London School of Economics Female Founders programme.

Sarika is a proud mother of two, and married to an Irishman. 🍀

My Sake Story 🍶

Actually, I never really liked Sake all my life! (even though I loved all other kinds of alcohol!). That was until I tasted a local brew in Fukushima back in 2009. It was so completely different from anything I’d tasted before — quite shocking to learn that Sake was this good! I had been missing out all those decades, declining Sake based on prejudices from a few bad earlier experiences.

Since then, I quietly started my own Sake studies — visiting breweries, meeting brewers, and obtaining certifications. The more I learned and tasted, the more fascinated I became.

Then I learned that the domestic consumption of Sake is steeply declining and breweries are closing every year. Sake — our 2000-year-old ‘national alcohol’ — only occupies 7% of the whole alcohol market share in Japan. Quite a shock.

I also became fascinated by women and women masters (toji) who work in this largely male-dominated industry. At present, only about 25 out of 1200 Sake breweries are headed by women tojis.

I wanted to share the beauty of Sake while supporting women who work in it. That became my mission. 🌸