Her Story
About Gina
Gina Fahnestock has built a career in sustainability spanning more than 6 years since starting in 2020. She currently serves in the responsible sourcing and sustainability department at Brilliant Earth, a mission-driven fine jewelry retailer, where she focuses on transparency and traceability in the supply chain along with fair labor practices. Prior to this role, she spent 2 years in the sustainability department of a shelf-stable seafood company, where she worked on traceability systems and government reporting. Fahnestock holds an undergraduate degree in environmental engineering from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo and a master's degree in sustainability leadership from Arizona State University. She attributes her success to attention to detail, organization, and creative problem solving, skills she developed through her engineering background and first consulting role adhering to ISO 9001 standards. Among her notable achievements, she helped lead the completion of social audits across 100 percent of Tier 2 manufacturing facilities in Brilliant Earth's supply chain.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Gina
01What do you attribute your success to?
I would say attention to detail and organization, and value add. One of my main value adds is the attention to detail and organization, and then also creative problem solving. Especially in sustainability, most of the stuff you're doing hasn't been done before so you really need to think outside the box and figure out how to sell this to shareholders and add value whether that's financially or using efficiency.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
Attention to detail was something I was really taught in my first engineering role as a consultant where the company adhered to the ISO 9001 quality management standard. The managers really had an emphasis on attention to detail and that's something that's really helped me in my career because it's all about the little things and being able to catch those details and make sure they're aligned.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
The advice I would give is actually something my husband has said to me. It's you're stronger than you think you are. I use that in daily life, in my professional life. Because in sustainability sometimes you're really butting up against a wall and you have to look for a window. You need to find that inner strength and creative problem solve and really whenever you're at your wit's end and you're like I can't do this it's too hard you're really stronger than you think you are.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I would say mostly it is opportunity because really a challenge is an opportunity. The opportunities are how can we do things more efficiently in regards to using resources and emitting less greenhouse gas emissions not only in your company but in your supply chain like working with your suppliers. Being downstream as a customer how can you push your suppliers. The suppliers are not going to make changes unless their customers are asking for the change. So the biggest opportunity is just asking mentioning it saying hey you want to do this how can we work together to achieve that. Partnership is key.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Definitely purpose. I can't just sit down and do a task I need to understand why I'm doing it. Impact so not only why I'm doing it but what kind of impact is this gonna have. Organization attention to detail. And then definitely being interpersonal so having being personable and making those relationships and connections with others like we're all people and human connection is just really important.
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