Interview: Rebecca Foerster
Building “Branding” into Creative Education
UNLEASHED Women features inspiring female trailblazers through full Q&A interviews. These women are creating new own opportunities across industries, pursuing positive impact for their communities, and leading socially productive practices in life and work at large.
UNLEASHED had the pleasure of judging at Pratt University’s 2018 Design Show, showcasing the talented work across Pratt University’s senior class, including presentations in fashion, jewelry, architecture, packaging, photography, film, and beyond. Among the judges for the jewelry division we encountered Rebecca Foerster, a leading professional in the jewelry industry specific to the diamond sector. Foerster had recently taught her first course at Pratt University, an additional commitment added on to her full time leadership of Leo Schachter’s marketing and strategic planning, sprouted form the desire to equip students with the tools necessary to launch and build their own jewelry brands.
Popular opinion about today’s educational priorities can be easily accessed through a simple survey of younger generations: Practicality is rarely the focus of university coursework, and many topics are left un-offered. Young students often find themselves learning by trial and error after obtaining their undergraduate degrees — applying to jobs, starting a business, investing, taxes, networking… A great deal of critical skills are not taught to general student populations at the universities they attend to obtain the tools necessary to build bright futures. What is less easily accessed, however, are faculty and educators who share the same beliefs, or furthermore, are working to improve practicality in education.
Foerster, an esteemed leader in the diamond industry, proves to be one of the rare individuals proactively working to offer practical education to students who seek it out. She embodies the values we both admire and encourage at UNLEASHED — recreating personal knowledge and success into opportunity and impact to those beginning their own career, personal, and life development.
Can you tell us about yourself and the career you’ve built over the years?
I am the executive VP of marketing & strategic planning for Leo Schachter Diamonds, one of the world’s largest diamond manufacturers. We’re a global company and have factories and offices in 8 countries around the world. We specialize in everything from the beginning of the supply chain (rough diamonds) to the end consumer with branded, finished products. One of the key differentiators for Leo Schachter is our global outreach and expertise in every part of the diamond supply chain, which gives us a lot of flexibility in addition to the ability to adjust according to the market dynamics.
I’m very proud to be a part of this organization — I manage all of our brand development and corporate strategic planning. At my previous job I worked for Rio Tinto, the second largest mining company in the world, where I dealt with every segment of the supply chain, starting with the actual mines and the rough diamonds. After all my experience in the industry I’ve built a great understanding and interest in the complete supply chain of diamonds and jewelry. That’s me.
Can you tell us about the branding course you taught at Pratt?
For years I’ve volunteered in mentorship programs, making presentations to GIA and mentoring different people. What’s always struck me is that there are so many talented young people that come out of GIA, FiT, Pratt, and other institutions who are very focused on the jewelry industry, come out of school with all this knowledge, but have no skills as to how to create their own brand or identify business opportunities, whether it be their own business or working for others.
After seeing this pattern over and over again I reached out to FiT and Pratt, desiring to obtain a faculty role, because I felt that I could give back to these students and offer more hands on, practical advice that was missing in the curriculum.
After two years of trying to find the right opportunity, I was able to secure a role in the continuing education program at Pratt where I developed a curriculum from scratch titled “Your Jewelry Toolbox for Success”, containing everything a person needs to know about branding and creating their own jewelry business.
The first class was this spring, and the course will be offered again next fall. It included students from all over the world who were all interested in creating their own jewelry brand (mostly designers) but had no clue how to talk about themselves, their story, or present to potential business and retail partners.
We start the course from the very beginning: defining a brand name and logo. The most important thing we introduce is how to voice your own story — the most eye opening moment for these students was when I asked them “What is your brand”… And each one of them talked about their product.
I got them to understand that the product is the vehicle for selling your brand, it’s the delivery system — the brand itself is your story and your inspiration, what gives you the passion to want to do this. It is what is going to make a consumer connect to your brand as opposed to 20 million other brands, this connective tissue has to exist between your story and what you are actually putting out there as a product. This is an important revelation.
With no prior exposure to branding, these students didn’t know the importance of storytelling or how to sell to the modern consumer. Today it’s not about shoving product down people’s throats, it’s about sharing your values and who you are. It’s about getting that connection with the individual so that they feel whatever it is you are doing — the expression of what you are doing — which makes it relevant to them. Once it’s relevant to them, and they have a genuine, authentic interest, they’ll buy into your brand.
The course was an entire journey through branding and storytelling, and it was very successful. By the end of it each student had a complete powerpoint presentation they could use to structure their own business plan, as well as modify for specific boutique or retail partners that might provide potential distribution and investment.
For a young professional looking to start their brand, what would you tell them?
One of the things I tell everyone is to find an internship position, to see if they can find a place within an existing company somehow related to what it is they want to do, depending on what their business idea is. They should find a place where they can do hands on, day to day stuff — on somebody else’s money. The money goes fast when you launch your own company — you’re going to make mistakes, that’s just the way it is. But the more you can learn from sitting every day and experiencing what goes into a specific brand, business, or product with someone already doing it — that’s priceless. You can’t get a better education than that. Through traditional education you gain a better understanding of terminology and concepts, but when you sit within an organization you get to see these concepts applied in real life, how it takes place and how it evolves. And that’s what you really need to know.
How did you get interested in the jewelry industry?
I have a very strange career path. I started as a pre-med major. My love and passion was always biology and genetics. I went to the Bronx HS of Science and was a pre-med major in college. Later on I realized I wasn’t keen to go to medical school for 10 years. I came out of university and had a similar experience to many of my students — I didn’t know where to start — but also different, because I only had a science background. I had no business skills — even though I had great grades I had nothing to offer a company.
I started from the bottom and made my way up in communications, PR, and advertising. When I was in advertising I knew I loved brands. I had this intuitive understanding of what consumers were looking for. I could look at a product and bring out the key features that would transform it into an interesting value proposition. From working on brands like Estee Lauder I was able to transition to the client side, and later became head of a skincare brand at Elizabeth Arden. That’s how my career started in the luxury world — I was in cosmetics, fragrance, and skincare for a while. I worked at Revlon, Elizabeth Arden, and Lancaster, and loved branding and creating product. I loved the entire storytelling aspect of the industry before storytelling was defined as an artform.
I was then recruited into the jewelry industry, when the manufacturers realized that if they didn’t start branding within the industry, they would run into trouble. I started out at one of the largest manufacturers of diamond wedding bands. When I was recruited into the industry it was a huge culture shock. The fragrance industry is a marketing driven industry supported by sales, whereas in the jewelry industry the sales is what drives everything and the marketing acts as support.
I saw an opportunity to take everything I learned from my previous industry and bring it into the jewelry world. As challenging as it was, it was very rewarding because I could influence change and see the change occur for the betterment of the companies I worked for, giving them opportunity to add value to the product and achieve higher margins with better pricing. This is where I’ve stayed and worked, I’ve worked on all ends of the supply chain for diamonds and jewelry, and this is probably where I’ll end my career.
Do you have any thoughts on the future of the of diamond industry?
The industry has gotten more innovative, it’s more innovative in countries like Europe, but for the most part the industry in the US is traditional. It’s when we’re able to introduce new technology or patent a cut, that’s when it’s most exciting. And that’s where the industry is heading.
When it comes to Leo Schachter, we were the first diamond manufacturer to create a diamond brand called the Leo Diamond (currently 20 years old) and maintain this top selling diamond brand exclusively at Kay Jewelers. Leo Schachter has made its mark within the industry for being the first manufacturer to create a diamond brand as well as the first manufacturer to introduce technology into diamond cutting.
We recently launched a new diamond at Jared called First Light, the first time a diamond has been handcrafted and created with nanotechnology, a combination of old world artisanship and new world technology. The end effect is a diamond that has both white brilliance as well as an incredible colorful sparkle. This is the result of thousands of microscopic prisms that are cut on the outside of the diamond’s pavilion — you can’t seem them with the naked eye, but what you do see are these infinite color bursts that create beautiful radiance.
What are some important life philosophies or values you encourage others to consider?
My big mantra is: Win wars, lose battles. I apply that to my personal life as well as my professional life. Life’s too short, most things don’t go the way you want them to. Most things are not planned and people have differences in opinions. When you’re younger you know it is important to be right, to win, to prove yourself. The reality is that this is true, but you have to know when to pick that war and you have to know when to give up the battle. When you do that you not only become more successful in your career, because people see you’re flexible and can work as a team player, but you also become better at relationships.
What advice would you give to your 22 year old self?
You have to be professional and serious about what you do, but you have to have fun and experience what you’re doing also. I always say to my team: we’re not curing cancer. Let’s lighten up, have fun, do an amazing job and be professional, but, at the end of the day, always remember to have fun, enjoy, and experience what we’re doing. The minute you lose that you won’t be as good as you can be.
Also: Ask questions. Too many people think asking questions is a sign of weakness, but asking questions is a sign of interest. If you don’t ask a question you could’ve, you’ll probably run into lots of trouble you could’ve easily avoided.
What is your biggest pet peeve?
People that refuse to take their own destiny into their hands. A lot of us have the privilege to hold control over our lives — not every day is a good day and not everything goes the way we plan, sometimes we’re not happy, but you can really control that if you try. People that get lazy and start to blame their direction on what’s happening around them — without ever looking inward — that really irks me. Sometimes people need help, not everyone has the same tools, but you have to be willing to take some responsibility to live your life.
What is something that makes you happy?
Seeing people around me be happy. When there’s harmony and everyone around me is happy, I’m happy.
Who is your sheHero?
My mom — she has been through a lot. She is a big inspiration every day to me. She is exactly the opposite of what my pet peeve is. She takes full responsibility for her life and what happens to her, she turns negatives into positives even in the most adverse situations. She’s extremely strong and is so appreciative of life, lifts me up when I’m feeling down, and is my biggest advocate. She’s 82 years young and she is one tough broad.
