Beth Anne and Joel get involved with all facets of their clients’ businesses, and this intimate knowledge in turn becomes an asset for their retail partners, in whose success they are equally invested. “We have the full snapshot of our clients’ businesses and collections in our heads at all times,” Joel explains. “Because we’re always advising them on every detail, we know where they are currently, what their next collections are and every step of their progression. And we know where they want to be in five years. This allows us to facilitate our clients’ growth and ensures we can stay in alignment with our retail partners.”

From design direction to pricing to marketing and branding to sales trajectories, they ultimately nurture their clients into, in one of Beth Anne’s catch phrases, “taking curatorial responsibility for their careers.” Like a best friend or close confidant, they are adept at identifying one’s greatest strengths, and they cater their services to celebrate those qualities while also bolstering the areas that need fine tuning. This holistic perspective of their clients’ collections and businesses fits squarely into their shared vision of the industry at large, as well as the reverence they hold for the art form.

Beth Anne “cut her teeth” in the industry in the world of high-end, collectable and incredibly rare estate jewelry. In extensively researching historically significant pieces and maisons while creating comprehensive dossiers for the collectors with whom she worked, a chord of passion was struck that still resonates today. Instantly besotted, she obtained a bedrock of knowledge about the history of the craft by pouring over books, working alongside world-renown experts and visiting museums and ateliers.

Today, immersed in the world of contemporary, designer fine jewelry, she views collections through this well-honed lens and can immediately determine where a designer can land on the commercial market. Beth Anne’s encyclopedic knowledge is a relied upon resource for their retailer partners, who often ask for insights into collections outside of The Gems Project client base, and also serves to set their clients up for success. “Beth Anne’s perspective creates designers who begin thinking like houses,” Joel shares. “Bringing this concept to a designer early in their careers changes their trajectory.”

While Joel also possesses a discriminating eye for design, he is considered the more analytical of the two partners, and his expertise encompasses a wide range of areas critical to the success of jewelry brands. His prowess in cost and margin analysis, jewelry manufacturing, gemstone sourcing and wholesale sales management is rivalled only by his ability to breakdown complex concepts into understandable, actionable terms. His background includes building clients’ businesses from the ground up and launching them with prestigious retailers, and his in-depth understanding of the fluctuations, nuances, pitfalls and peaks of the industry’s inner workings is born of personal experience.

Buttressed by a zealousness for style and fashion, he gives freely of his knowledge in guiding and advising his clients, and he is often sought after for sales training at retail, a service The Gems Project is proud to offer in order to enhance the vitality of their partners’ overall businesses. “When our retailers begin working with one of our brands, they are not only creating a partnership with the designer, they’re also creating a partnership with The Gems Project and everything that comes along with it,” Beth Anne says.

Beth Anne and Joel’s hands on approach to their clients is augmented by their staffing method. Similar to their ability to meet their clients where they are and help them achieve their greatest potential, they have hand-picked their support team, who each bring specific strengths to every project and client under The Gems Project purview and who embody the duo’s steadfast conscientiousness and integrity. In addition to their operations manager, Kit Mobely, who is based in Denver and whom Beth Anne and Joel consider “indispensable” to their business, they have created a “dream team” of sales associates located in Fargo, Naples and Michigan.

They also have at their fingertips an extensive catalogue of lapidaries, photographers, graphic designers, stylists, publicists and talent agents, and they leverage these long-standing alliances to meet each of their client’s unique needs, whether it’s tweaking a co-op ad for a store’s holiday catalogue or producing full scale photo shoots to create striking brand imagery.

While Beth Anne and Joel approach everything they do with a sense of gravitas, they also take incredible delight in their work, which is reflected in the strong relationships they continually build with each of their retail partners. “We are both highly driven to help the individuals who are buying the jewelry feel good about what they’re curating,” Beth Anne enthuses, “We’re curating the people we represent in a way that their jewelry can all be worn together, and our goal is to help a sales associate curate a collection for their clients that allows the individual, even when they’re wearing clothing that everyone else in their community owns, to look and feel different; that is our greatest joy. Our designers are happy, the client is happy, the store is happy, and we’re able to see the joy of adornment.”