Jeremy Shepherd

Leader, innovator, disruptor

Jeremy Shepherd is a leader, innovator, and a disruptor.

From an early age he struck out on his own to satisfy his fierce independence, need for adventure, and a more satisfying way of life.

As a teenager, he traveled to Japan alone and stayed to attend high school. He is self-taught and fluent in Japanese, Spanish and Micronesian.

Through college, Jeremy worked for Passport to Languages as an interpreter of all three languages.

To continue his world travels, became a flight attendant in 1996 and soon began importing pearls during his runs to Asia.

In a sector dominated by generations old family businesses, Jeremy endeavored to become a first generation, self-taught pearl importer, dealer, and internet reseller.

Over the past 20 years, he has traveled to pearl producing areas all over the world creating relationships with pearl producers, exporters, and people dedicated to support the pearl industry.

Here are some milestones of Jeremy’s innovative efforts:

  • Visited pearl farms in nine countries.
  • Guided research team through Chinese pearl farms in preparation for the GIA pearl course and served on content review team for the finished course.
  • 2004: Founded Pearl-Guide.com – the only news and community forum dedicated to everything pearls, currently hosting over 200,000 pages of content and servicing nearly 10,000 members.
  • 2005: Purchased an Asian pearl farm, providing invaluable vertical market experience.
  • 2007: Was one of three people from United States invited to present at the World Pearl Forum in Dubai.
  • 2007: Wrote and published book on how to start online businesses.
  • 2011: Lead a four-week, seven-country pearl farm tour to create an educational video series for the Cultured Pearl Association of America
  • 2012: Produced the short documentary: The Tahitian Pearl.
  • 2013: Won Best Director award for short documentaries at the International Family Film Festival.
  • 2015: Joined the board of the Cultured Pearl Association of America.
  • 2016: Wrote Pearls As One, the Cultured Pearl Association of America’s Pearl Specialist Certification Course. Now translated into 10 languages and taken by more than 90,000 students, it's the most studied pearl education course in history.
  • 2018: Executive produced Power of Pearl, a feature-length film on the South Sea pearl industry.
  • 2019: Represented the US cultured pearl industry at the World Pearl Forum in Bahrain.
  • 2020: Became vice president of the Cultured Pearl Association of America.
  • Has appeared on numerous national news and entertainment shows and has been profiled by:

  1. The Wall Street Journal
  2. Entrepreneur Magazine
  3. Inc. Magazine
  4. Newsweek
  5. The New York Times
  6. The Financial Times
  7. USA Today


    Jeremy is married to Hisano Shepherd, an international award winning pearl jewelry designer. They live in Topanga, California with their Corgis, Happy and Lucky. Hisano and Jeremy continue to travel the world and enjoy meditating, yoga, diving and sailing.