About

I’m the founder and CEO of Designs by Nature Gems, a handcrafted gemstone jewellery studio I built from a market stall into a multi-brand business operating out of the Centre for Social Innovation on Spadina. We sell across Amazon, Etsy and our own storefront in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K., and employ artisan jewellers in Toronto at living wages with full benefits.

The company was named Fastest Growing Company — Canada at the 2022 Stevie Awards, and was profiled by Amazon in a documentary produced for its Rising Stars series. A year later, a marketplace algorithm change erased a substantial share of that revenue overnight, with no notice, no explanation and no meaningful appeal.

Rebuilding from that pushed me into policy work. I’ve since been recognised as a Titan Women in Business award winner and a Female Entrepreneur of the Year, and named a finalist for the Lenovo Evolve Small Grant, placing in the top 5% of more than 400 applicants across Canada and the U.S. I previously served as an Entrepreneur in Residence with RISE.

I teach this material because I needed it and it didn’t exist. Everything in these sessions is something I learned by being on the wrong end of it.