Anne V Muhlethaler interviews Ana Maria Sierra, a market development and strategic communication consultant living in Colombia. She is a Fulbright Scholar with a master’s degree in mass media from the New School for Social Research in New York. Following a 15-year corporate career in business management and leading senior management teams in Colombian and multinational banking and service companies, Ana founded Sierra Restrepo Consultores in 2009, a consultancy specialising in marketing and strategic communication. From an early education in the arts, then media before going into banking, Ana Maria has built a robust career and has worked with clients across Latin America in the coffee sector.
In their conversation, Ana tells Anne about her journey with MODA ELAN, the conscious and ethical jewellery platform she founded that aims to be the bridge that brings together the best ethical jewellery designers from around the world with the jewellery masters and gold panners from the biogeographical Chocó territories in the Pacific Coasts of Colombia. Ana shares how she became motivated by her love for handcrafted jewellery after taking a silversmithing course in Bogota, which led her to transition from a successful career in promoting coffee consumption in Colombia to pursuing her passion for silversmithing and artisanal metallurgy and eventually founding Moda Elan. Through this B2B platform she hopes to support local artisans and promote ethical jewellery practices.
Leveraging her consultancy firm, Ana explains how she began to sell her jewellery as pop-up shops and fairs, gradually incorporating contemporary urban jewellers into her portfolio. Her deep involvement with the Alliance for Responsible Mining opened her eyes to the importance of responsibly sourced minerals and single-origin gold, which became a cornerstone of her ethical jewellery brand. She became passionate about the powerful pre-Hispanic metallurgy legacy she discovered, which led her to choose to promote work rooted in the history of the Americas, with its unique aesthetics, materials — and, through the jewellery, bring those values to the world. Ana’s passion is evident as she tells Anne how she is committed to work with the Afro goldsmith communities of the Chocó Biogeographical Region while adding sustainability to their cultural heritage around goldsmithing.
Ana's work is characterised by a strong commitment to social impact, particularly in supporting vulnerable communities like women miners and the Afro-Colombian artisan jewellers of this region. She talks about the impact of unlicensed mining and emphasises the need for transparency in the jewellery supply chain, advocating for ethical sourcing and fair trade practices.
Looking ahead, Ana offers her vision for Moda Elan, which would be to expand its reach and bring more awareness and support for ethical jewellery, reaching the wider ethical luxury market and leveraging the stories and values behind each piece to spark meaningful conversations with the view to drive sustainable change. She acknowledges the challenges she faces, such as managing rural associations and competing with large gold traders, but remains determined to overcome them. To illustrate that point, Ana jokes that this project is like “a jumbo jet with a blender motor.”
Ana's journey is a testament to the power of shared values and the potential for creating positive impact through dedication and collaboration. Happy listening!
Ana on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ana-maria-sierra-restrepo/
You can also reach out to her directly elan.moda.vital@gmail.com
Information on the Afro jewellers of the Choco region
Discover the Choco region of Colombia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choc%C3%B3_Department
The Afro-Chocoan Jewelry Catalog
The article from the Independent that started jeweller Pippa Small - https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/the-real-price-of-gold-5348614.html
Dirty gold book & documentary -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gr_S81JyAxk
Alliance for responsible mining - https://www.responsiblemines.org/en/
Oro Verde, the project that paved the way for the Alliance for Responsible Mining - https://www.responsiblemines.org/en/2014/05/update-from-oro-verde-and-amichoco/
The Arts & Crafts Santo Domingo School or Escuela de Artes y Oficios Santo Domingo where Ana studied silversmithing. https://www.eaosd.org
The book The Cave (la Caverna) by José Saramago - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cave_(novel)
Algor meaning - https://www.merriam-webster.com/medical/algor
Elan Vital - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89lan_vital
Philosopher Henri Bergson - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Bergson
Out of the Clouds website: https://outoftheclouds.com/
Out of the Clouds on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_outoftheclouds
The Mettā View website: https://avm.consulting/metta-view
Anne on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/annvi/
Anne on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@annvi
Anne on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anne-v-muhlethaler/
[00:00:00] Hi, hello, bonjour, and namaste. This is Out of the Clouds, a podcast at the crossroads between business and mindfulness. And I'm your host, Anne Muhlethaler. So today I am back after a short break. I mean, it has been a couple of months. since my last podcast episode was aired. And I'm delighted to return to you with today's new episode featuring Anna Maria Sierra, the founder and creative director of Moda Elan.
[00:00:38] Anna Maria and I had the pleasure to meet in November 2023, so not so long ago, in London, where she was appearing on a guest panel with a corporate client of mine, Pippa Small, herself a pioneering ethical jeweller, who has been at the forefront of conscious jewelry making for the past 30 years. Now, because I participated in the ideation of the event, I got some insights into Anna Maria's journey and I felt compelled to speak to her in depth, which is what I did.
[00:01:17] I indulged in this interview. Anna Maria has a fascinating life trajectory. That took her from music studies to working in culture in Bogota, to a master's in media studies from the new school in New York, before coming back to Columbia and getting in a 15 year corporate career in banking, business management, and leading senior teams in both Colombian and multinational service companies, eventually.
[00:01:50] She decided to build her own consultancy specializing in leadership and strategic innovation for the development of sustainable markets. And it is under that banner that she worked with coffee growers across the world. With Mora Elan, Ana Maria explains that she has built what she hopes to be a conscious ethical jewelry platform with an aim to match the best ethical jewelry designers from around the world with the jewelry masters and gold panners of the biogeographical Choco region in Colombia.
[00:02:29] So in this conversation, Anna shares how she became motivated by her love of handcrafted jewelry after deciding to leave her corporate career behind and how she essentially fell in love with silversmithing, eventually getting involved with jewelers in Bogota and realizing that her skill set was a fantastic match to serve the Afro Colombian artisans and jewelers of the region, as well as the women gold panners and, and the local economy.
[00:03:04] Now she likes to say that her project has been taking off, though it's like a jumbo jet. with a blunder motor. She's got a sense of humor. We did have a few snags during this recording, and I hope that you will not notice it beyond my mention of it, and that instead, you'll simply let yourself enjoy Ana Maria's story.
[00:03:25] Happy listening. Ana Maria, it's such a pleasure to see you again. Welcome to Out of the Clouds. Thank you very much, Anne. I'm really honored. And I really enjoy this conversation and knowing that. other people will share our thoughts. Oh, that's lovely. So, I would love to get started as I, as we have done that one time before when technology failed us, starting with asking you to tell me about your childhood and who you were as a kid and perhaps what paved the way for you to become the woman you are today.
[00:04:06] I have to say I have a, I had a very happy childhood. I am the one daughter of a family of six, the rest of my brothers are men. I was one of them. We used to play together, mainly at that time, men games. I also think that opens your mind towards many different perspectives, being one in a large family. My mother was educated in the U.
[00:04:36] S. And that also gave us a perspective of a broader. Mindset. Colombia is a country that for decades was a confessional. It was Catholic. The state itself declared itself Catholic until the new constitution. I think even before that changed, it was a contrast between being part of a large family, which.
[00:05:00] Creates an open mind in terms of listening to different opinions. And the other side, a country with very conservative, traditional habits and expectations for what a woman and what a family should be. Then, when I was nine years old, My father and my mother divorced, which was not usual at the time. And in this Catholic country, all our lives change.
[00:05:29] We used to live in the countryside in this beautiful house. And we went back to the city. I changed school from a. Only women, very conservative school, to the French school where my brothers were studying. That was a good thing, I think. I discovered that the world existed. I discovered that there were other religions, ways of thinking.
[00:05:50] I also remember a friend whose father was from the, I think you say mason in English. And so all that started to show me that the world was not like one way and opened my mind. The other thing I would say was interesting was we visited frequently our grandmother and grandfather in another city in Medellin.
[00:06:14] And she was this beautiful, So well behaved and dressed woman. She had amazing jewelry. My grandfather, he was a, an entrepreneur and used to travel around the world. And they used to bring things from the, their travels and that included jewelry. And I really had a very good connection to my grandmother.
[00:06:38] And I think that my love for jewelry comes from back there. I might have been 10, 12. I admire so much what she used to wear. In the country, my mother, she was, for most of her young years, raised in the U. S., in a very different environment than Colombia, and she was so natural. I think it's the best way to say, so the contrast between that natural woman and my grandmother maybe attracted my attention towards jewelry.
[00:07:07] I used to love what she wear. At grandma's home, there were these magazines. I can remember the publicity of these brands and everything, and that attracted me. Then later on, at the French school, I had a professor, the mother of a good French. Her name is Amparo. She still works as a pottery designer, and she does amazing things.
[00:07:30] And she was our professor, and that was the first time I had the opportunity to work with my hands. And I loved it. I loved it. And I discovered that the connection between design and hand craft was something I enjoyed. I started to draw a little very simple things that I still do with. Either pencil or markers, very naive drawing.
[00:07:55] I never had any professor to teach me, but from then on, I kept these. I discovered my art side. Later on, we moved to Bogota with my mother, finished high school and my artistic side grew up. Since I was really young, I used to sing. I have a powerful voice and my father used to sing to me a lot. And so I think that also develop an artistic side.
[00:08:27] So when I end high school, I started to study music and I went through the five years of music and in order to pay for my studies, because I became quite, um, an independent young woman. And so my father caught whatever help he was giving me and say, okay, Ana, you want to be that independent? And like a little rebel, you have to care for yourself.
[00:08:52] So I started to work as a, as an assistant and I was really lucky since I love that much art and culture. Then I think also the directors of the. Companies where I work were, had a good part in finishing shaping the way I am today, I think. So it has a lot to do with family, with school and the opening up to the world.
[00:09:21] But then while I was working, I was really lucky. I had, I think I worked with the two women that Really built the cultural environment of Cali, which is a large city. And then Bogotá, Amparo de Carvajal and Gloria Sea, those two, they were patrons. They were ladies married to really big entrepreneurs and they really did a lot to open the country to the cultural world.
[00:09:51] I mean, and so very young. I was the assistant to Amparo de Carvajal and we used to invite Improartes, which is this foundation, a nonprofit. And in my work was to coordinate the whole logistics and receive artists from around the world, like the best ballet groups, dancers, piano players, orchestras.
[00:10:15] Imagine I was studying music and having contact with these people, really. And hence my view to the artistic world, to the world. I had the opportunity to be with them like for three, four days. I was their host. And then later on with Gloria in Bogota, I did the same. From the French school, what I kept was interested to, the interest to learn more about the world.
[00:10:41] That became an interest. I have lived all my life in Colombia, had contact with people from outside, but then I said, Okay, I'm going to do. My MA outside and I started to look how to do it and ended up winning a scholarship. A Fulbright scholarship is a scholarship from the Congress of the United States and went to New York to do an MA in media studies.
[00:11:09] It was a tough time. I had some depressions in the past and New York, and later on, I understood that it was a cultural shock really was very strong. And so I ended up very depressed. And I love to share these because I think many people might have these situations. The good thing is that a few years before I had met who is not Now, my husband, we were living together for a year before I left to the U.
[00:11:37] S., and he was a very good support for me. If it, if it was not for him, I don't know, maybe I wouldn't have been able to finish my MA. Yeah, yeah, he's a wonderful companion. Diego is his name. He's an engineer. We're very compliment because he's, Square minded, very methodic, and I'm like the more flexible part of the couple.
[00:12:01] Um, I worked, as you see, I worked in, since I was, I think, 16 years old. Which is usual outside, but in Colombia, it's not that usual for a, not nowadays, but at that time, it was not that usual for a woman to be a professional and study and work at the same time, at least in the environment where I was, because I have to say, many people in Colombia has to study.
[00:12:27] and work at the same time. But in the environment where I was, it was not that, that usual. So I think all of that gave me a pretty independent perspective of what being a woman Should be, and later on, when we came back from the U S I enter a more corporate world, I started to work in banking, always in the marketing and sales side, which is the most creative side of corporate life and I, and Since my background in academics was not that strong in math and accounting and all of that, I took some independent courses, but also I kept this creative way of seeing things later on.
[00:13:14] And you might be aware. That came all these lean methodologies and design thinking and everything. That's the way in a very intuitive way I used to work before I used to support myself in interdisciplinary teams. I, because I didn't have the background to have methodologies like an economist or an engineer.
[00:13:35] I enjoyed it very much. I discovered that I had The ability, the power to work in corporate environments. And I did a corporate career that I think was interesting. I work in banking for seven years. Then I went to work with these previously, which is really interesting and has also to do. I'm going to go back a little with how I learned from the persons that were my bosses during my corporate career.
[00:14:04] I had other two interesting works. One was. Being the editor, the chief editor of the largest public university in the country, the National University. Yes, I remember you mentioning that. Yeah. Interesting. I worked directly with the head of the university. And because of that, at the end of that work, which was about two and a half years, I went to Germany.
[00:14:32] I was single at the time. It was before meeting Diego and going to the U S really young. I think I was like 22, 23. And I, we published many different interesting books, got in contact with academics, which also was. Something that nourished me a lot. Had to read a lot to keep up with that. Demanding academic position.
[00:14:56] And then I went to Germany. I learned German because I knew that if I wanted to go for that scholarship, I needed to learn German. I learned German and went to work in Frankfurt for six months or so, which also, that was the first time that I really went abroad and interact with people from other cultures.
[00:15:15] Really interesting. I traveled Europe and that kept opening my mind towards the world. And a little after that, I also worked for the president of the country, Belisario Betancourt. I coordinated a group of, of public and private, and I would say leaders, to write down the memories of his government. Also, very young.
[00:15:43] Now I look back and I say, my goodness, how did I do all these? I know I'm listening to you. I'm thinking the same. I mean, everything you're telling me, it sounds like you've already led seven lives by the age you were. I don't know. 26. I didn't think about that at the time, but I remember when I went to Germany and I discovered that being in the publishing world was.
[00:16:07] Really something, it has a higher respect, I think, in society than it used to have here. The same as being a professor in a university or so. And I was really surprised and they were like, how can you do that? And I think it had to do with working in teams. Of course, I always supported myself in people that in different aspects of the challenges I had, knew more than me because I was really young at the time.
[00:16:34] I mean, when I worked with the president, I was like 22 or something. And from then on, I was in contact with people from the academia, the public life. That was really aware of what was happening. I used to read a lot because I had to compensate. I mean, I was a musician within it. And then later on, I said, OK, I have to have a stronger academic background if I want to keep up with these.
[00:17:01] So then that was the time when I applied for the Fulbright scholarship and then went to New York to study. And when I came back, the first work I did was with the cultural national organization that later become the cultural secretary of the government. And that was a time when they were celebrating 500 years of the discovery of America.
[00:17:27] And so we, we were a team. I had a person who was my boss and we were a team supporting that celebration. Then again, I had a, uh, a depression. I can remember I had to leave that work. And after that few, uh, yeah, I work as a freelance for some time publishing coffee table books and things like that. I was married to Diego because we came back from the U.
[00:17:56] S. married. He, we, when I was there, he proposed on the phone. That was really a nice anecdote. I was living in La Mama, which is a off Broadway theater. And as soon as I went to the U S before I found a place to stay, I stood there with a friend and Diego called on the public phone at that time, there were no cell phones and proposed.
[00:18:17] So I came from, from, from week at that time, women could not give power to an attorney or whoever took to get married. Only men could in Columbia. So I had to come back. Got married for a week and then we went back together and this nervous breakdown that I had made me come back and I finished through internet my, my master's degree.
[00:18:42] I remember it was this big modem. It was like, I was one of the five first people to use internet in Colombia, I think. I finished my degree through the internet. And for a few years, I kept doing some freelance work until I started to work in this bank, which was at the time, one of the biggest savings and loan organizations and started to work as an advisor to the CEO and then became the chief marketing officer.
[00:19:15] I learned a lot, I did a lot of very innovative things like, for example, the first insurance retail sales in branches. It was not allowed previously when the law allowed to sell insurances for retail, for people. I was the one to work with a UK team and bring together with their methodology. An interesting product development and like that, we developed many innovative products, which I think was possible also because my background was not in banking.
[00:19:49] So regulation for me was only one more criteria and I was not, yeah, I was more open and yeah. Then because of the, in the, that was in the nineties, And I don't know if you remember that there was these financial crisis in emerging markets. It started in Russia and then it came here. I, in the UK, it was really bad.
[00:20:17] The loans were cost were higher than the warranties that the people had like the houses or whatever. Same thing happened here. So at that time, the bank where I was working as many other banks got nationalized, they became public, their shareholders. Lose everything and the nation took over. So I stood there for six months and then went out in a transition work.
[00:20:44] Again, I went back to this creative thing. I work with Maloka. Maloka is a science center. To promote children awareness of science and technology and they were opening it. And so I worked there for a year. I went there because the bank was a supporter. How do you say when you put money, you sponsor was a sponsor of the center.
[00:21:07] And so I helped put together all the marketing and sales area. And then this French company recruited me. So that was the most boring work I've ever done. But it was like, The situation was, okay, we have a family. My husband, who is a constructor, was broken at the time because of these international financial crisis, literally broken.
[00:21:31] So I say, okay, this is my time to go back to corporate business. And I worked in first in Colombia as an operational manager for The region then became the operational manager for the country. And then they offered me to go to Venezuela, which at the time was crazy. There was Chavez, the national strike.
[00:21:54] And I was in Venezuela as the country manager for Sodexo. For four, four or five years, I remember exactly, I used to do things well, I remember it's part of what as a family we have inside is in our DNA is be responsible, do your best. And so even if that work was not attractive. Because, I mean, it was operating services inside industries is outsourcing in Venezuela.
[00:22:27] It was a little more interesting because the value we added to oil rigs or out of the ocean platforms was higher. But when you, when, what you have to manage is to develop 20, 000 plates of food one day for General Motors. I mean, it's a challenge. You need a lot of people who knows what they're doing.
[00:22:48] It's It was interesting to go and live to Venezuela at the beginning because at the time Colombia was under a war. Remember Pablo Escobar, how they used to put bombs everywhere, how they used to pay to kill policemen. I mean, it was terrible to raise a family and my husband was broken and so I said, okay.
[00:23:09] I moved to Venezuela and my husband used to travel back and forward every two weeks in order to keep his company operating, which he did successfully. He recuperated his company and he keeps on being a constructor these days. And I was like in charge of the kids in Venezuela for them, it was amazing, a little like it was for me to enter to the French school when I was a kid, they were in this international school with 36 nationalities.
[00:23:39] I think it's the best thing that Venezuela has left us. It was tough. I had to work hard, didn't have as much time as I would have loved to have for the kids, but they were surrounded by wonderful families and people that also became our family. The mothers, almost all of them were only soccer moms and at home, and it was really warm for the kids.
[00:24:03] And I think it shaped much of what they are right now. They're really international, like with high values, young men and women, men and women. In Venezuela, I came back, made an agreement with Sodexo, I didn't want to be there anymore and because they offered me to be the country manager either in Chile, which was the largest operation in Latin America, or in Colombia.
[00:24:26] And I was doing an interesting career in terms of having every time better positions, but I decided I wanted to Change the work I was doing. And so I started to do some strategic design and mainly in communications and marketing. And then a headhunter recruited me to work in this interesting program that was putting together by the National Coffee Growers Federation and many roasters in Colombia.
[00:24:59] And the challenge was to develop larger coffee consumption because coffee is Incredibly enough in the country of the richest coffee of the world, consumption was shrunking. And then I worked for them another eight years. That was a very interesting work. I was an outsourcing full time consultant that gave me a lot of independence.
[00:25:24] I work with the steering committee, which were the presidents of the roasters and the person in charge of the brand and marketing at the. National Coffee Growers Federation. And it ended up being a work that is now a world reference for how to develop categories working together instead of fighting each other, which of course, everybody has to fight each other in the market.
[00:25:53] But inside what we did was to develop very, Uh, just in research, who, um, educate thousands of young baristas, thousands around the country with the support of third parties. To do and gather and bring to the country research about coffee and human health and to do promotion, but mainly PR. We didn't invest in, in publicity at that time.
[00:26:24] Then that steering committee was, I think the dream team. You had people with knowledge from many, many different backgrounds. A lot of knowledge about coffee and we ended up the coffee category has shrunk 45 percent in the end since the 80s to 2009 when we started, and from 2009 to 2016. We made it grow 36 percent and nowadays it keeps growing because what one thing that was really key to do was that when the program finished funded by these companies and the National Coffee Growers Federation, we kept alive and endorse the different action lines.
[00:27:09] Two third parties and they're still alive. That was key to what I do today because I discover how interested I was to work with small producers. Because in Colombia, coffee growing, it's mainly from small farms and it's a family business. There's. 100, 000 people who get good quality of life out of coffee growing in small farms.
[00:27:35] So it was part working for these larger holders of the roasting industry, but also to improve the livelihoods of these families, which is what the National Coffee Growers Federation does. And so I put to work. All the values that I learned around my life and the, we, I think I would say we unleashed like the power of these knowledge that was in the steering committee and the, and also the knowledge from these coffee growers.
[00:28:07] And we ended up with this model that really put together. When we were in the table of the steering committee, we share a lot of knowledge and see insights. We had wonderful third parties working for us. It was very light. It was only me and a secretary and assistant, and the rest was all third parties like Macan, Ericsson, OMD, like large, very knowledgeable people putting communication and strategy to work.
[00:28:34] And when the shareholders, so to say, went out of the steering committee, they used all this knowledge. For their own good. So it was competition being built instead of only fighting for price, which was what happened before. And when you only fight for price for retail price, you destroy value. You see? And so from then, when I decided, okay, and we all decided this is the time to, to endorse these lines of action to third parties and each one is going to do their own work, I said, okay, now I'm going to have time for me.
[00:29:12] My husband was already working very good with his company. The kids were grown up. We went through a very difficult time because Diego, my husband had a pancreas cancer, so we went abroad, but I kept on working while his treatment was taking place, which was really good. And I am very thankful with the people that I used to work.
[00:29:33] The coffee people said, no, Ana, we want you to keep on working. We have you because. of your values. And that was good. But after a very difficult treatment, Diego survived. I came back and I said, okay, I'm going to have some time for what I love. And I enter the Escuela de Artes y Oficios Santo Domingo. A social positive impact interest was born on me.
[00:30:00] I think it has a lot to do with my mother. We didn't speak a lot about her. She was the daughter of this couple and had other five brother and sisters. And she was raised in a very traditional way. But when she went to the U S when my grandfather was the ambassador to Columbia in Washington, she had an open mind.
[00:30:20] And later on, she got married very young, divorced very young. And I think the whole May of 68 from Paris came here as a wave. And she was at the university when that happened. She already had six children and decided she was going to fight. For equality and liberty and became a left party, very active member, which was crazy at the time.
[00:30:48] Most of the social community around her said, no, we don't accept you, but she kept on fighting and she kept being a left party member until she died. And the conversations with her when I was a little young, I mean, I was a Eight, nine, 10 year old, there were meetings at our place, our home. I used to listen to that.
[00:31:12] And when you listen to your mother, this is like life and this is like the truth. And so I think all these sensibility towards. Positive social impact comes from there, but I never really got into it. I, I went more into this corporate world. I shot that paying taxes and offering employment was enough. But then when I went to work with coffee growers, I said, yes.
[00:31:40] There's a lot you can do if you have been privileged enough in the country with such big differences. If you have been enough privileged to have education and access, because I think professional life has to do about having access and knowing how to manage relation. And I said, okay. I like it very much and I think with the background I have, I, that's something I would like to do more and then that together with the experience in coffee growing with the families, because I had to go to the countryside to be close to them to listen to them in meetings and so on.
[00:32:19] And then having the time to go back to art and starting to work, to study at the School of Arts and Crafts.
[00:32:32] I wanted to get back to how you got started with Moda Elan. What was the inception of that project for you? When I was finishing the program to promote coffee consumption in Colombia, that was around 2016, I decided it was time to go back to the artistic interests that I have. And I discovered this.
[00:32:54] amazing world of handcraft, metallurgy, which I have always loved. And I started to identify some values that I share with the people around me. There were many people studying other crafts at the same school. I started to have these conversations with friends and family and the people that I used to do professional life with, and I realized that was something that really interested me.
[00:33:22] So I went into the silversmithing, but when I was there and I started to see how Beautiful. The objects that the silversmithing masters used to build. I decided, okay, this is an opportunity to open the market for them. They only have this very natural close market. And I said, all the people should share these beautiful pieces.
[00:33:45] And I started to do a small B2C work. I, as a platform, I use the same consultancy firm that I had already built. back in 2009, but I introduced in the creation of the company, other activities. And so what I did at the time was to do some pop up shops. I went to some fairs, I started to bring into the portfolio, so to say, of artisans and jewelers, some contemporary urban jewelers.
[00:34:20] It was a tough work because the scale of the artisanal production. was making it very difficult to really open some international markets. And because most of them are mainly artisans, they don't have any other skills. And so whenever I had orders a little larger, the answer was not that good. In, in parallel, I also, Discover the opaque world behind supply chains for gold and gems.
[00:34:55] And I started to try to research a little how to get responsibly sourced minerals. And I got into the Alliance for Responsible Mining. I contacted them. And in 2018. As a coincidence, there was this amazing visit from jewelers from around the world that were Fairmines licensees were coming to visit the Fairmines certified mines in Colombia, and I joined them.
[00:35:22] And these trip opened the universe and the vision about what already was called ethical jewelry around the world. I learned, which is really interesting, that the origin of Alliance for Responsible Jewelry for Responsible Mining was. From Colombia is this girl from Medellin who put together a number of artisanal Afro miners from Chocó and was looking for exports that was back in 2008.
[00:35:56] And she put together these interesting supply chain where she exported the gold. And then six months after a premium came back and that was called Oro Verde. And that developed into what is now Alliance for Responsible Mining. It became a Swiss non profit. Every time you hear gold, you can't make sure they're Swiss, they do a lot of work, of course, and they get a lot of support for artisanal small scale mining.
[00:36:26] I then started to realize that social impact, which remember I mentioned, I discovered when I was working with small coffee growers when I was doing this coffee consumption program and jewelry were two things that I loved. And I started to associate jewelry as a A strong force, like something that could put together vulnerable people like women miners or artisanal ancestral miners and really people that had the values and they value in terms of economical, the perception of those values allowed for high pricing and that would allow a larger margin for the payment of the jewels made out of these gold.
[00:37:11] And I slowly started to put it together. That was back in 20, say 2018, because 2017 and 2018, I was still doing B2C. It was something more with silver, which I also use only upcycle silver. There's these, these little family industry that takes out the salts of silver that are in lithographies and x rays.
[00:37:35] And with chemical processes, clean chemical processes with the right final disposition of those chemicals, they take out the silver. And so the silver that I use at that time, and the one I use for the gold alloy now is upcycle silver. And I started to think that if I wanted to have a higher impact, and if I wanted really to connect people that could bring Back a larger margin, I should work with gold and it was a dynamic, so to say, working, researching, networking, and, and then on 2019, I started to speak to PIPA small Morgan Selenoma, which at the time was a marketing officer at Alliance for Responsible Mining.
[00:38:20] put us together and said, you have to meet each other. We started to talk through, through the Zoom, which at the time became very popular because of the pandemic. And also Christina Miller, who is a consultant that promotes responsible jewelry, had open living rooms. Because of the pandemic, she had to stop.
[00:38:41] And so each month she had these conversations. She invited me. I invited a jeweler, Juana Mendez, the researcher. And I invited Pipa to see that webinar. And she fell in love with the whole thing. Because at that time, I had switched from, The local large city jewelers like the urban contemporary jewelers towards these Afro jewelry and the break the turning point going from B2C to B2B and from silver and contemporary jewelry to trying to put together international jewelry designers to these amazing Afro jewelers and using artisanal ancestral gold miners.
[00:39:22] For the gold supply came out of a project that we did in 2019 in 2019, the national handcraft organization, they have these fair in December and in May that year, they invited me and said, Anna, we learn about, you know, model Rikki. want to invite you to bring something for the fair. And so I got together 20 different artisans, some of them work with leather, some of them silver, either silversmithing or contemporary jewelry.
[00:39:57] And I did this immersive experience. We went to a special guided tour to the Gold Museum and the whole thing was around the myth of the jaguar and the hypothesis is, and this is documented in a paper, maybe I can give you later the name and the link, which is really interesting, is an anthropologist working with a biologist, and the hypothesis is that As long as the myth about the jaguar existed, which ties it with power, with strength, and it was highly respected back in the pre Hispanic cultures.
[00:40:35] But as long as agriculture, modern times came, and the myth was broken, there was no more respect, and the species got threatened. And then I said, okay, there's an interesting concept. That can tie artisans from all the Americas because the Jaguar journey came from down from South, the US through Central America, South America until Argentina.
[00:41:04] That was the path of the American Jaguar. Now in South United States, they're extinct. And because of all the industries and urban, large cities and everything, there's problems in genetics that don't allow them to be as. strong as they are. And the jaguar is a an umbrella species. That means that it's very important for the balance of the ecosystems.
[00:41:28] They eat the rodents and then the rodents stop eating the plants. When there's health Jaguar population, it means there is balance. And so I, I heard all these amazing concepts and what we did was we went to the gold museum only to see what the symbology and the myth of the Jaguar was. We had conferences by the experts studying the anthropological myth.
[00:41:53] We also had the director of. of Pantera, which is a study group that studies cats around the world, and then comes out these amazing pieces from these tutors and, and, and other, and that ended up in this fair in 2019. And so that really brought a lot of rich intellectual products and of course, the final objects and jewels.
[00:42:21] And all the process, I was like thinking, Oh my God, this is really interesting. And one of the people involved was Lina Campo. Lina is the curator of the Gold Museum. She studied anthropology, archaeology, and then went to do metallurgic archaeology. archaeology in Africa. And she mentioned to me, Ana, this is really ambitious because my dream and still is, is to put together different artisans from around the continent to express themselves and raise awareness about the importance of keeping the Jaguar alive.
[00:42:56] And Lina said, Ana, you don't have to go too far. You can stay in Colombia. And she opened my eyes. to this amazing Afrojewelry. Then I met Juana Mendez, who had already studied, and I'll give you the link of the Hijos del Sol, Children of Sun, and the two catalogs where she describes Afrojewelry. They're free and in the web to, to access.
[00:43:19] And these two, these two experts and the discussions we have, and opened my eyes and I said, okay, there's something I can do in Colombia. I will focus. And I started to really learn about them. I started to go to the towns. I, and I started to still thinking about B2C. But then when Morgan connected us and during pandemic in family conversations, speaking about the interest of producing social impact.
[00:43:49] I remember I mentioned my son said, okay, if you want to do that, Why not bring the designers so you will have a higher economical impact because you will have to pay for the hotels, everything in the towns. And I said, okay. And that was simultaneous to Morgan introducing Pippa and myself and because of pandemia and all the time, I imagine everybody had time to think, to analyze, to sit down, to slow down.
[00:44:18] I did this accelerator. With climate change, climate change is a Dutch platform to promote startups to change climate. And so I said, okay, I'm going to do it. And that was a big support in order to put down the business model. And this is how it works. 81% Of all the investment the international designers do when they come for this immersive design experience, it stays in the local towns.
[00:44:50] Wow. Usually they come through Bogota and they leave through Bogota, so we have two nights in Bogota. But for the rest, the gold is bought there, all the labor is made by local designers. Jewelers, the hotels. Okay. I hope the owner of the hotel is a local. So it's gradual. And more and more, we try to leave the economic impact in the region.
[00:45:13] Each time more of that percentage stays there. PIPA came the first time during 2021, which still we were opening and closing the country. We were still pretty close. I strengthened the network. I did some small collections. And so when PIPA came, We were pretty ready, although she was the first one and she made it possible, really, because she was taking a huge risk, a huge risk.
[00:45:42] We had talked a lot. I remember long hours on, on the internet. Because it's amazing when I think what has brought Modeland to where it is, it's shared values. Shared values with people as special as Pipa, that I have found along the way. Or Lina Campo, the creator of the Gold Museum. Or Juana Mendez, who dedicated five years of her life to research.
[00:46:07] Or there's other two very interesting people, Nuria Carulla and Tatiana Price. They both studied jewelry at the Masana. Masana is a school in Barcelona. It's a contemporary jewelry school. And Tatiana, when she came back, she founded this school called Materia Prima. And I'm telling all these because I hope when people listens to these and goes to your website and checks the links, It's really people that offers you reach values in the way Materia Prima works and I went there after I finished to the Escuela Santo Domingo, I went to Materia Prima and my purpose was to learn how to become a good curator, not only to learn more about the craft in order to be able to accompany, to design, to supervise the work, but also to learn from them how to become a good curator because that's what I do.
[00:46:58] Whenever someone like Pippa sends the sketches and we have to think about the making, the weight, how it is profitable for everybody in the supply chain, how to interpret some things. Pippa, for example, she's so innovative. She's always pushing the boundaries and she, Anna, we want to do this, but not this way, but in the other.
[00:47:19] So I have to go back to the jewelers and so on. And so Tatiana and Nuria, Nuria is, I think she's around 80. Tatiana is younger. She's around 40. And the way they teach is that when you enter that jewelry school, they support you in order to develop an artistic identity. It's really interesting. It's not only the skills, but your own project.
[00:47:42] And through the time when you work there. They accompany you, they give you feedback, they're very powerful curators. And so I always, not only learn from them the skills, of course, a little, but also how do they refer to the work, what's their perspective, so I learn a lot. And I think I can say that now I can curate.
[00:48:04] The work of others with a lot of respect and in this case, for example, if you think there's syncretism in the pieces, when a designer comes with its own concepts, ideas, very powerful for their own customers, because that's what gives connection between the designer and his or her customers. Customers, but then you have the local techniques, you have the voice of the jeweler and you really want like a perfect match not to lose the local DNA, not to lose the designer's DNA.
[00:48:37] And it's very soft. I would say it's like behind the scenes, but there's some curator work there. It has a lot to do with the connection between jewelers, designers, and understanding the needs. Because in the end, our work is to make everybody more competitive in terms of skills, in terms of return of the investment they are doing.
[00:49:04] Of course, I learned more about the context of where the gold and the jewelry came from and the conflict. That is happening there and how the life of these people was threatened all the time. I tried to send to the world the best of them, because they're happy people, they're hardworking people, but I cannot leave aside the fact that they are like trapped between very few opportunities and the conflict.
[00:49:31] And conflict means there are places where when there's an armed strike, as these narco trafficking groups call it, people cannot go from one town to the other. The economy stops. There's extortion, but even with that, they never see themselves as victims, which is really interesting. They are defined by the world, by the NGOs, by the government, by everybody as victims.
[00:49:57] But they don't see themselves as victims. They're really resilient. They keep on working in that in many different aspects in daily life. Okay. So where does model land comes from? It comes from shared values and the shared values are shared with the international designers that order. It's shared with the women miners, with the jewelers, with everybody in the system.
[00:50:23] And those values have to do with the origin always. That's something I had very clear from the very beginning because I studied at a French school. Then I went to the new school and started to learn about Eurocentrism and that was like, whoops. Yes. We are in America. Our perception of the world is hugely.
[00:50:43] Mediated by the perception of this Eurocentrism, the way history is written and everything. And so when I started to work in jewelry, with this powerful pre Hispanic metal, which is Legacy, I said, I'm going to do something planted in the Americas. It's the aesthetics of the Americas, it's the materials of the Americas, it's speaking to the world, it's bringing to the world those values.
[00:51:08] And I'm being very happy, because I'm the first, you know, client we had when we started this B2B was like the world model for that. I was so surprised that we came together because I've, I've been doing benchmark. I do benchmark all the time. I check. And I would say PIPA, and now other clients that work with us, but PIPA mainly because she also does B2C, which is really important for us, shares our values.
[00:51:37] She believes in the value of origin. Where do the materials come from? How do we add more value to that origin? How do we bring back social impact to the origin? That's really important and is not always present in the jewelry supply chains. Of course. Don't not always. Where does the gold of your jewels comes from?
[00:51:56] I would say 99. 9 percent of the people cannot tell you that. Absolutely. It's interesting. It all melts up. Yeah, it's all melt up. I feel very close to this topic because I had started to consult for PIPA on strategic communication. A few months before she announced that she was doing this collection with you.
[00:52:16] And so we worked with the PR teams and then later on, on further plans for communication around this. And I remember that one of the most successful pieces of communication that we had was a teaser. before the collection landed on her website and in the stores, which was a blog post written by Pippa's hand.
[00:52:41] She writes beautifully to explain to her clientele why the topic of clean gold was such a big deal to her. And we didn't have an opportunity to really dig into the story of the craft at that point, but. Um, even myself as a consultant, I felt very touched and I think most of our teams did because when we hear the reason why someone is doing something like this, it's the context of the story matters.
[00:53:13] So for Pippa, just to give you an idea for our listeners, she read an article, which I actually unearthed from The Independent from, I want to say 2011, but I have the link, so I'll post it in the show notes. Oh, great. In reading this article, she discovered the amount of chemical waste, which is several tons for a ridiculously small amount of gold.
[00:53:40] So the amount of destruction in the environment is on a scale that most of us have absolutely no understanding. And I think that As someone who was already standing for ethical jewelry making, this became a weight on her shoulders. And I think that most jewelers who care about their supply chain and about the environment as well as the ethical practices have this problem.
[00:54:07] Unless the gold or the materials are recycled, the traceability and how clean is the noble materials that we work with. It's a very delicate topic. And personally, as a consumer, I find it really hard. I want to buy a piece of jewelry for a friend of mine this year. I know what I want to buy her. I'm looking for a specific kind of bracelet or necklace.
[00:54:31] Where can I find something that I am guaranteed is coming from the right kind of sources? And most businesses do not communicate clearly about this, even if a portion of their collection comes from recycle gold or king gold or fair mines. We want to be able to know this. It needs to be able to, we need to have the kind of correct labeling in order for people like you to find the consumers who want to buy the products that you put out in the world.
[00:55:00] And without this question, it's very tough. It's really interesting. You have touched many points. One data is that Two or three grams of gold in large scale mining, they need to drag one ton of material out of the earth, two to three grams of gold. When you go to small scale mining and I've seen it for two grams, you need 60 kilos of material.
[00:55:25] It's really smaller. And when you think about handpanned. You don't need anything. Of course, you have to remove the soil in the beaches of the rivers. When you pick it, there is carbon neutral. Then it adds the logistics carbon footprint, of course. But when you pick it up, it's carbon neutral. And now that you mentioned the word recycled gold, there's a huge debate.
[00:55:51] The Responsible Jewelry Council, which is a big association of mostly large Jewelers in the U. S. brought up the debate because they want to define what recycle is. And where did recycle came from? Pandora. Pandora is the largest jewelry retail in the world. And they promised that by 2030, I think they would only work 100 percent with recycle.
[00:56:13] The very same definition of recycle is you recycle something that was going to be thrown out. You never throw out gold. And sometimes You have gold that has been called recycled, and it has only been mined like a few weeks before turning to some piece and then melted down. So it confuses. So we prefer to call it reprocess.
[00:56:39] It's not transform. It's reprocess. Of course. Absolutely. Reprocess gold. And the other thing. And the reason why we want to know where does the gold over jewels comes from, and also the gems. Unfortunately, because of the high price of gold, It is inserted in narco traffic and networks of kidnapping people to make them prostitutes.
[00:57:04] I don't know the word that's, it's Traffic of people, I think. Human trafficking. Yeah. And the way they clean it, and that is also documented, there's this interesting book and then a documentary called Dirty Gold, I think it was in Netflix. It's that they extract the gold, usually using yellow machines.
[00:57:26] Which means they devastate the environment. And that happens around the world in any other country where there's origin of gold. They enslave people is like the mother and slavery. It's terrible either because they employ. Not even employed, they pay whatever, or because around there used to be traditional small scale or artisanal miners that do not have any other thing but to follow these machines.
[00:57:53] It happens. It happens all along the regions of gold in Colombia. The only thing they can do to subsist is to go behind these machines and they do these agreements, word agreements, where they get like the little, the rest of whatever they left over. That gold leaves illegally the countries. and goes into the commercial trade.
[00:58:15] How? In the dirty coal that I mentioned, for example, which was a well known refinery in Miami that used to have clients as important as the U. S. Treasury or large corporations, that refinery only asked the traders to sign down that the provenance was legal. Sorry, I'm laughing behind my screen. That's terrible.
[00:58:39] Yeah. Yeah, sure. Yeah. That's how they launder that money. So always ask your jeweler, could you please tell me the origin of this gold? The usual answer is yes. Lady, I cannot answer you because gold is melted. That's not an answer. That's not an answer. And I have heard even people in the sustainable system saying, okay, but it's so expensive to export gold that you have to melt different origins in order to export it.
[00:59:09] Oh yes. One could say the same about coffee. My model says the same way. That when the coffee prices went down and they had to come up with ideas to make it more valuable in terms of perception, we can do the same with gold. We can have single origin gold. So the gold we use from Choco is called single origin Choco gold.
[00:59:32] Oh, of course it's more cost. Of course, because it has higher ethical values too. It's a long way to go. People sometimes say, Oh, you're too naive. And I say, yes, but the model work in coffee. Why not? Why not in gold? Absolutely. Yeah, but they discuss that coffee, but has a cup profile and gold is gold here or whatever.
[00:59:55] And you say, if you really communicate the intangible values to your final buyer, then it's different. It can be the starting of such an interesting conversation in terms of marketing. What I think is. The final customers of somebody like PIPA, they're wealthy in values, not only have the money to pay for those values, but they believe on them.
[01:00:25] And so they also proud to share them, just the opposite as a, as somebody who wears like gold and gems, and it's only showing I'm wealthier in terms of economical value than you. Here it is. We share ethical values and that sparks interesting conversations. So finally, what these model, which I have to say, it's still little in terms of the scale and the impact.
[01:00:52] It's when you think we work with 44 women miners in Colombia has 75, 000. It's so tiny little, but creating impact things to, to, to designers like PIPA. The tools that PIPA brings to her final customers. Spark conversations, very powerful, and not only bring back socially impact, decent work, a premium that is used either to support the miners, both the jeweler and the miners receive an additional.
[01:01:28] And we are starting to work with projects that are restituting, regenerating biodiversity. Yes, I remember her telling me. The purpose, finally, is that the very same final customers who buy can help us propel conversations, wield, and finally, maybe, resources. Of course, I followed PIPA before I even met her.
[01:01:53] I remember, this is a really nice anecdote. I don't think she knows it. When I was starting with this B2C, a friend came to me and said, Anna, I love what you're doing, but you're not making very big impact. I want to show you these designers from the UK. And she sent me PIPA small. So when I finished the first collaboration with PIPA, which took long to be launched, And I keep everything confidential until my clients launch.
[01:02:23] Then when she launched, I sent it to her and I say, thank you. Thank you because Pipa has been a big inspiration. And finally, we are working together, which is again, is values. And more and more is values, really shared values. What brings you together and make things possible. And you know, the other thing, small conversations might bring conversations and projects very ambitious and high impact projects.
[01:02:48] I believe in that. I just felt that for me when I heard what you did in coffee and how you ended up in in jewelry and gold, but there's a part of me that wonders if you, I can tell you're an amazing business woman and you apply creativity. In your approach to business, along with, of course, methodology and a lot of rigor, but I wonder to what extent did you also fall in love with the people?
[01:03:15] And that's why you're involved in both the coffee project and the jewelry project. A hundred percent. As I mentioned before, it has a lot to do with my mother and her decision after a very traditional life to try to do the revolution because she entered that left party and she was very active. She was really active.
[01:03:39] And when I sat down as a girl to speak to her, trying to understand, why are you not coming to my meeting at the school or what? She sat down to explain me because she had so much to do in doing her work. We were six at home and she managed to do everything and trying to do the And so I sat down to say, and she explained to me all the time, why We were the same as other people, and we had to work hard to make a living also the same to everybody.
[01:04:10] So I think that got into my mind, and of course, I believe that. I believe if you can, because you have had the privilege of having a good education, of having access, I think in professional life and in many things in life, it's about getting access. And administrating expectations, but there's people that doesn't have access.
[01:04:34] It's not always about not having the resources, it's having access, access to either health or markets. For example, that's what we do in this model with these international designers. We offer access, but then you need to teach people how to administer those expectations that I learned it through my professional life.
[01:04:55] I think you want to say manage the expectations. Yeah, manage. That's the perfect word in English. Manage the expectations of whoever, your boss, your clients, and you have people that have such a potential, amazing potential. A good example, and Pipa loves them, is the young boys and girls. They're not more than 23, 24.
[01:05:16] From Morro Rojeros. We recently went to Tumaco in February this year. Perfect. And with her, this was the first time that the jewelers of Morro Rojeros worked with gold. They used to work with silver for many years, like five or six years, and now they're working with gold. And, and this is the perfect example of high potential young people who, thanks to the support of the NGO Save the Children, who offered them skills, teaching, they took the master's and prepared the workshops and everything and taught them how to do the local jewelry.
[01:05:56] And there were three Associations. The one that was led by women is the only one that's still there. And through the support of Save the Children and through people like PIPA and myself, They have learned how to upgrade and sophisticate the work that they do. And now, for example, their work goes to what, I don't know, Paris Fashion Week, JCK Las Vegas, and PIPA, since we share these values, offers them credit.
[01:06:25] Of course. Everybody knows who's behind those jewels. And I'm teaching them how to manage these expectations. You have to, Make things in time. You have to know how to do pricing and they're growing and growing in a very difficult stage of their lives. One just had a baby and the both of them, the leaders are at the university.
[01:06:49] In February, that was the first time that we brought. The big masters that taught them to their own workshop. They were so proud. So I would say that's part of that social love. It's part of, of really embracing. And so I sometimes see myself in them. It's very egoistic to say I have had so many opportunities, but in terms of emotional stability, remember I told you my adolescence was not easy.
[01:07:14] I said, you have to have this little hand. And you have to go together. It's not like you or I is us. And it's not I go in the front and you in the back is let's work together. And I profoundly believe in that was with women. And usually it's harder, but also with men, I prefer to work together. Support and collaboration and not the word empowering, which is in fashion.
[01:07:41] I don't think anybody needs empowering. The power is inside. You might need some companies, some collaboration. And so I think that it's an expression of that social impact love that it's inside me. I, I believe profoundly in that. I love that word, social impact love. I think this may have to be the, I think it may be included in the title of this podcast episode.
[01:08:10] It's wonderful. Can I ask you, what is your dream for Moda Elan? I have a big challenge now, and that is how to bring more impact. I call it in a very funny way. This is a jumbo jet. with a blender motor machine. That's an amazing analogy. Anyone who hears that is going to understand. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Because what do I need now?
[01:08:39] I would, I have the skills, the knowledge, I've done so many, whatever. I was the vice president of a bank and so on, but I'm, I need, I would say I need a path that allows us to go for a larger impact. And when I come back from that, I say, okay, what is a larger impact? For example, I've been trying to support the women miners in order to become an association.
[01:09:09] It needs a very specific knowledge about how to work with women miners. With rural persons, the mindset is so different. I've been there a couple of times. I try to bring in a nonprofit specialized on that, but then I end up competing to a large gold trader and I say, okay, how do I do? Because these women miners are in the middle of these large polygon with gold.
[01:09:39] And so I try to, there are barriers that I know I need. other partners that have complementary knowledge in order to really be able to develop some of the potential projects we could do. And of course, in parallel, we need to reach to other designers and to reach more of these ethical luxury markets.
[01:10:05] Yeah. Yeah. So that's a big challenge. I feel a huge responsibility because what we're doing is not enough. And of course, there's a big barrier called. The conflict, which is not, it's not on me to control, but I, yeah, I try to influence in terms of the discussions I have, the opportunities of raising the voice like these.
[01:10:28] I try to be like a leader in terms of promoting a change, but there's still a big challenge to go ahead. I see myself because sometimes in these conversations, people says, Anna, you do too much. No, it's so little what we do. There's so much to be done. And so I have to go from projects, which is the way I manage literally as when you produce a film.
[01:10:52] So I hope one day we can grow in terms of reaching more people. And of course, finally, what will work is when the final consumers learn the stories. And through their networks, bring back more interest, more will, more resources. I'm sure we, we can do it. For example, I have a dream. I mentioned it to Pippa.
[01:11:20] I dream, Mr. Hamilton, the, the Formula One driver. Sure. I like him very much because of his background. He's really sensitive to the long way he has gone and how he helps other people to achieve the same. I have the dream to. offer him one of the choco chains. So if you know anyone who knows him, let me know.
[01:11:42] I don't, but I'm sure there's someone in my network who has a connection to him. I would love, because I think he would appreciate it so much. And he would be a voice. That could speak about it because that is, it's a legacy, it's a legacy from Africa. It's a legacy that came to America and now it sparkles conversations about ethical jewelry, the origin of gold, the people behind the jewels.
[01:12:08] It would be so powerful. I think it's part of the business model and of course, the designers that reach these leaders are a big part of it, that they are the key. Of course. So I want to reflect back to you how extraordinary your career is and how inspiring it is to hear you talk about it, particularly because you started out as a musician.
[01:12:34] And if a woman in a country that's still a patriarchal system and you forged your own path in a way that is really quite remarkable, but now it leaves me to wonder, I understand that you have this ability to, to Keep on touching your creative spirit and, and cultivate it with jewelry and the people you work with and with curation, which is incredibly creative.
[01:13:06] But where is music in your life today? Oh, mostly in the shower. Yeah. And I know what happened. It's interesting. I used to sing in groups and as an amateur mainly, most of the time. I mean, since I was a kid, I was in, in competitions and things like that. And then later on, I entered these amateur groups and I used to do covers and a couple of times I sang in, in, in discos and things like that.
[01:13:44] Many, many times my friends said, Anna, sing. I used to sing sometimes at my, my close friends weddings and things like that. But I remember myself singing. Very quietly all the day. And you know what made me quiet? New York. I think that break, that nervous broke down to me very strong. And it's taking me years to recover that small voice that it's a company to sing.
[01:14:15] All day. I do it now, but not as often. I also used to sing in choirs. Yeah. And I once sang in the opera choir in Cali and with good directors like, uh, Mickey's the other rackies or who were invited and then the national orchestra had a chorus and I was part of that, of those cars. Yes. Yeah. That's amazing.
[01:14:44] I feel particularly close to you because of course I also was a singer in my youth and I know what you mean about this sort of constant low humming. I very recently, since our first conversation, I had the pleasure to meet an incredible musician called Alison Russell and I didn't really know her music and getting into it, music has been in my head a lot more these last couple of weeks.
[01:15:09] So I appreciate. Just the, our lives that don't always follow that musical path, but it's lovely to know that it's coming back to you. Yeah. Sometimes I think I should join a chorus, an amateur chorus again, because I enjoy so much rehearsing, sharing the voice with other people. I adore human voice. And so I, yeah, sometimes I think it'll be amazing and maybe you should think about it going into these amateur chorus to keep on singing.
[01:15:43] Yeah, something needs to happen. It's interesting. You should say that your favorite instrument is the human voice. I agree. And my favorite word is harmony because my favorite thing is vocal harmonies, vocal arrangements together. Beautiful. Yeah. And so I wanted to share listening to you speak again, and obviously our listeners are going to understand that the first part of our conversation, the recording did not function.
[01:16:12] When I listened to what you've done, What really strikes me is your ability to find this, almost this orchestral quality that you have brought in the various teams that you have pulled together, right? You've managed to find a way to make people of different backgrounds, different strengths, different sensibilities work together, even when they have to compete and working towards the common good.
[01:16:43] And so let's say that someone who's listening to this podcast. And discovering your life is thinking, gosh, I'd really like to do something like Anna Maria has done in her career. What would be a piece of advice or a thought that you'd want to leave them with? It's interesting to listen what you say because I never thought about it.
[01:17:03] And yes, that may be because I felt myself that I had a handicap because I didn't have that engineer mind. And I was among these. Men world, because I think almost banking used to be and still is a man's world. Maybe I was like, Intuitionally gathering the knowledge of everybody, trying to put everything together.
[01:17:29] And the other thing I think has to do with that is that. The divorce of my parents was really something that left a scar on me. And I think all the time I try to look for how can two people that do not have anything in common, learn from each other. I think might have to do with like, how can I put them together again?
[01:17:54] And so I developed a sense of how can I get something good, even from people who screaming and how can I. Give feedback to be able to build upon that. So, for example, as a saleswoman, and I am a very good saleswoman, the thing what you do when you sell something like B2B is you listen to the other one.
[01:18:20] You add value and you give it back. So, my advice would be Listen and learn, because when I hear to you and I say, Oh my God, I never thought about it, but yes, what I do with PIPA and with other close designers that come and work with us, I mean, I'm bringing together people from remote areas of Colombia, who really are knowledgeable and have this legacy that they are transferring in their jewelry or in gold panning, together with people from another continent.
[01:18:56] And I think it's, it, I feel it as a natural thing, but now that you describe it, it's interesting to put them like the miners and the jewelers and designers like people or other designers that work with us, if we want to put them in a. weaning situation, their DNA has to come together because if Vipa wants to sell jewels, she needs contemporary DNA.
[01:19:23] Her clients live in London and in LA and in France, but if we want to keep alive the legacy, the local DNA has to be there. Part of what I do when I call it curating, but of course there's a lot of the designer there, no doubt, and a lot of the jewelers there. And the other thing that I think changed on me through time.
[01:19:46] is I turn a very strong need of recognition, self recognition. I needed the eyes of my mother, the eyes of my father on me. I used to feel instilled when I speak to my kids and they give me back this powerful woman, professional woman. I say, my dear, I have only done what I have to do. Being able to, it's like when you give me back this image, it's more powerful than what I feel inside, but what I changed was that need of recognition to be able to see that in myself, towards learning that it was, Not about me, but about the other.
[01:20:30] I learned that when I work with coffee growers, I realized how privileged I was of having studied, having access to these, say, for example, high, high leaders in the country. I mean, I had access to the president of the country that came back again when I was working in coffee and I was like, Oh, how can I?
[01:20:52] It was intuitive, but I realized in these jewelry, I knew I loved it, but it was not about me. It was about these miners and jewelers and the opportunity to bring that to the world, thanks to amazing designers. If I have learned something is listen, learn, and think, how can you put the others in a winning position?
[01:21:20] It's like a wave, and if that gives you purpose, that will make you so strong, that will bring happiness to your life. If you have that sensibility and it's not easy, it's not easy. I'm 62 now. And sometimes I say, do I want to escalate these? Because I want to have more positive impact, but that is going to be like a piano.
[01:21:44] So I keep on working in projects. You see, I brought that from my MA and from working in, in radio and television for a while also, which we didn't go into detail. And I keep. Working in projects. I mean, who is coming? We have to develop a close relationship in terms of being sure that we share the same values.
[01:22:06] And, and I put together a team and I, and that team, of course, includes the jewelers. I activate the supply chain of the women miners and the title that works with them, the mining title that works with them. And then there's a project. And when the project ends, I do the reports, I do everything. And I worked for the next one.
[01:22:26] It's incredibly inspiring. I have the privilege to have seen a lot of the work. I have seen all of the backstage images and I've had the opportunity to listen to Pippa and her team also relay back of the experience of working with you. And so I hope that. If anything, it's going to inspire other people to go out and check out the work that is being done by your team at Maude Aylan.
[01:22:50] And I can't wait to see what else you're going to be doing with these amazing jewelers, with these goldsmiths, the silversmiths, and of course, everybody else, including those women gold panners whose faces I now know. I'm excited to see what you do next. And I think many people will be excited to hear about it.
[01:23:09] It's very cool. Thank you. You are a very cool person. Thank you very much. I never thought about it before. And I never had the opportunity to have someone in the other side offering me so much positive feedback. Thank you. Thank you very much.
[01:23:30] Anna, I'm going to ask you a couple of questions that I always ask All of my guests, just to sort of close up, and these are questions that tend to make me very happy. And so I'd love to hear from you, what is your favorite word and a word that you could theoretically tattoo on yourself, basically live with at least for a while?
[01:23:55] I would say freedom, no doubt. I think freedom is so powerful, is different to equality. In China, for example, trying to make everybody equal, there's no freedom anymore. I, I profoundly believe in freedom. But I also love El Anvital. And El Anvital is, is a concept that was brought by a French philosopher.
[01:24:18] His name is Henri Bergson. And it literally means, The impulse of life, that thing that makes you either alive or dead. And how did I came up with this concept? And that's how I came up with the name Moda Elan. And I came up with it because it is looking for names that meant. artisan, handcraft. I thought about the novel of the Nobel Prize, José de Saramago, which is called La Caverna.
[01:24:52] La Caverna is the same way you call the, the cave. And in the cave, there's this metaphor about how Postmodern systems are bringing down craft, and with it, the way humans think, it's a very powerful novel. And the main character is called Al Gore. And I started to research what Al Gore was, I wanted to maybe name my company Al Gore.
[01:25:18] But I learned that Al Gore is just the opposite. It's the last little breath of life in a person. And so I said, okay, what is the opposite? And I started to look for the opposite, Al Gore, and I found this El Am Vital, which I also love. I love, I believe inside each one of us, there's this powerful self driven impulse that, that keeps on helping you to look for purpose for, and I've seen it in people in very difficult situations.
[01:25:52] You cannot understand how, and it's inside. So that's another word that I love. I don't know if I would tattoo myself. I love Elan Vital too. Oh, you certainly have a very strong Elan Vital. And so let me quickly ask you my last and favorite question. What brings you happiness? What brings me happiness? If I think now in my life, when am I happy?
[01:26:19] When I am in these remote areas. working with local people. I love my family and I enjoy a lot family moments. Very simple, like breakfast with my husband. I love it. And a family dinner, but I have to say, I feel very happy when I am in a remote side, thinking about these very detailed. whatever in or learning how to pan gold or learning how is a small scale emerald mine.
[01:26:50] I love it. I love it. Anna Maria, thank you so much. I have enjoyed our conversation immensely. You're such a joy to talk to. And also I feel that you have so much to share your experiences. It feels like you've had 10 lives in one so far, as far as I can tell, I haven't counted, but it feels like that for sure.
[01:27:14] I can't wait to see what's going to happen next for Moda Elan. I will make sure to put the links to everything we discussed in the show notes. Is there anything that you want to add? Anything that we haven't touched on before we close? No, I think, thank you very much, Anne. Thank you very much. I hope this conversation becomes more conversations.
[01:27:35] I would please ask you to put my email in your, in your website. Of course, because I hope if anybody listens to these conversations and understands. The challenges we have at our small company and how this powerful concept can bring impact to many people and to regenerate biodiversity, I hope they reach us too, so we can start new conversations.
[01:28:04] That's wonderful. Until next time, I hope I'll see you again very soon and have a wonderful rest of the day. Thank you very much Annie, and I love spaces to raise the voice and you make it possible. Thank you.
[01:28:21] So friends and listeners, thanks again for joining me today. If you'd like to hear more, you can subscribe to the show on the platform of your choice. And if you'd like to connect with me, you can find me at envy on threads on Instagram and V on LinkedIn. If you don't know how to spell it, the link is in the notes or on Instagram at underscore out the clouds, where I also share daily musings about mindfulness.
[01:28:49] You can find all of the episodes of the podcast and much more on the website. Out of the clouds. com. If you'd like to find out more from me, I invite you also to subscribe to the Metaview, my weekly newsletter, where I explore coaching, brand development, conscious communication, and the future of work.
[01:29:09] That's the Metaview with two T's the metaview. com. So that's it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening to out of the clouds. I hope that you will join me again next time until then be well. Be safe and take care.