Expelled at sixteen. Honoured at fifty.

Standing in a Rajasthani garnet mine I called the Gateway to Dante's Inferno, I understood that I could not only be a retail jeweller. I had to be a campaigner for the people being exploited at the source.

The places I visited were often apocalyptic. Sierra Leonean diamond mines. Congolese gold pits. Indian gemstone workings where adults and children laboured knee-deep in mud, exploited by local and international traders. Modern slavery, at extreme proportions.

Life wasn't always this way. I was expelled from school. I spent my teenage years in the theatre and on the streets of London in the eighties. Those years opened my eyes to the plight of the poor long before I ever held a gold ring.

Following the metal home

Monitoring the supply routes of raw materials, I became determined to make transparency and traceability the profession's mantra. Jewellers routinely ignore the stories of their sources. This is an industry that runs scared of the truth, while holding the wealth and power to put it right.

I was the first international jeweller to visit Oro Verde in Colombia, where I befriended eco-friendly gold miners. In 2004 CRED Jewellery launched the first ethical jewellery website in Britain, selling green wedding rings. Seven years later I was named the Observer Ethical Awards Global Campaigner.

I have worked alongside Bob Geldof, Katharine Hamnett, Anita Roddick and Harriet Lamb. I believe the hopes and aspirations of communities cannot be built on the desolation of the destitute, economic injustice, the chaos of conflict, or the ecological abuse of the planet.