Update: This conversation with Pierre Fallourd was recorded live on February 8. If you missed it, you can watch the full discussion below.
Next Sunday, February 8th at 3 pm Pacific, we’re hosting a very different kind of livestream at Pearl Paradise.
Pierre Fallourd will be joining us in Los Angeles for a single afternoon, and he’s generously spending that time with us to talk. Not to sell. Not to launch a product. But to share ideas, ask questions, and explore where pearls are heading as an industry.
If you work with pearls, care about where they come from, or are simply curious about how sustainability, traceability, and value intersect, this conversation is for you.
Who Is Pierre Fallourd?
Pierre Fallourd is one of the most influential thinkers in the modern pearl industry, though his career began in a very traditional way.
He spent more than 15 years at Jewelmer, the pioneering producer of golden South Sea pearls in the Philippines, where he rose to Assistant Managing Director. At Jewelmer, Pierre helped shape the global positioning of golden pearls while gaining firsthand experience with every stage of pearl production, from oyster seeding to luxury retail.
In 2013, he joined Atlas Pearls, one of the world’s largest South Sea pearl producers, operating farms across Indonesia. There, he served as Vice President of Pearling, then CEO, and later Managing Director. His tenure coincided with major operational growth but, more importantly, with a deeper integration of environmental stewardship and community development into pearl farming itself.
Over time, Pierre’s focus expanded beyond production and marketing toward a larger question: How do pearls retain and grow value in a world demanding transparency, accountability, and proof of impact?
Today, Pierre is also Vice President of the Pearl Association of America, where he helps guide education, standards, and forward-looking initiatives for the industry as a whole.
From Sustainability to Value Creation
After leaving Atlas, Pierre founded The Sustainable Value Generator, a consultancy built on a simple but powerful idea: Sustainability should not be treated as a cost or a marketing slogan, but as a measurable source of value.
Pearls are uniquely positioned here. Unlike mined gemstones, pearl farming depends entirely on healthy marine ecosystems. Clean water, biodiversity, and stable coastal environments are not optional. They are essential.
Over the past several years, Pierre has worked closely with scientists, pearl farmers, industry bodies, and conservation organizations to better quantify what pearl farming actually does in the environment. This includes nutrient filtration, habitat creation, biodiversity support, and community livelihoods in remote coastal regions.
That work laid the foundation for his most ambitious project to date.
What Is OneGemme?
OneGemme is a trade-only platform designed to do something the pearl industry has historically struggled with: Connect quality, origin, and impact in a transparent, verifiable way.
Rather than treating pearls as anonymous commodities, OneGemme focuses on single-origin pearls. Each lot is linked to a specific farm, assessed for quality using consistent criteria, and paired with documented environmental and social data.
To support this, OneGemme partners with Gübelin Gem Lab’s Provenance Proof technology, which uses blockchain to create a secure digital record of origin and chain of custody. In practical terms, this means provenance doesn’t disappear after the first transaction. It stays with the pearl.
The goal isn’t complexity for its own sake. It’s clarity. And ultimately, better alignment between the effort it takes to responsibly produce pearls and the value those pearls receive in the market.
A Conversation, Not a Pitch
This upcoming livestream is not an “It’s Mine” event. Think of it as a Pearl Talk.
We’ll spend about an hour with Pierre discussing his journey, his ideas, what OneGemme is trying to solve, and where he sees the pearl industry going. Most importantly, we want this to be interactive.
We’re genuinely interested in what you think.
What questions do you have about traceability?
Does sustainability actually influence how you buy pearls?
Where does this resonate, and where does it feel unclear or impractical?
Pierre is coming through Los Angeles just for the day, and this is a rare chance to engage directly with someone helping shape how pearls may be valued in the future.
We hope you’ll join us, ask questions, and be part of the conversation.
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