Matt Harris is an entrepreneur who has lived an extremely diverse professional life. As a teen he was awarded a scholarship for conducting at UNLV. In college he worked for art galleries in Las Vegas and on Rodeo Drive. Warner Brothers recruited him to manage their 5th Studio Store located in Cesar’s Palace. The store set world retail records and at age 23 Matt was promoted to Western Regional Gallery Operations Manager in charge of 24 stores from Hawaii to Colorado. At age 26 he started a software company which received venture capital funding and was in operation for over 20 years helping people worldwide study for important exams.

Matt has an MBA in Strategy from Pepperdine University where he was awarded the Distinguished Alumnus designation in 2002 and spoke at that year’s commencement ceremony with former Secretary of State Caspar Weinberger.

Upon exiting software, Matt changed paths completely and took over a jewelry store in Austin Texas where he quadrupled net margins in just three years. He then left that post to finally pursue his life’s passion… pearls.  Matt is now a pearl specialist, pearl jewelry designer and pearl historian.

Matt has given speeches about pearls and pearl jewelry for the Women’s Jewelry Association,  the annual “Pearls on the Bay” conference and most recently spoke in Tahiti, French Polynesia about  “The History of Pearls : Rarely Told Stories About the World’s Most Interesting Gem”. Matt has also been on stages talking about the power of perception and a limitless mindset, using his own diverse and exciting story as an example.

Matt has designed  pearl jewelry for Debra Messing to wear on Will & Grace, for Britney Spears,  Kate Flannerly (The Office), Victoria’s Secret models and for national news anchors.

He has been profiled in jewelry magazines such as JCK Style, the Wedding Channel and Luxury Las Vegas. He has appeared on television interviews for CNN and MSNBC. He has also been interviewed by Money Magazine,  Business Week, the Wall Street Journal, Young Money Magazine, the LA Times, NASDAQ.com, Yahoo Finance and San Francisco Chronicle.

Matt is also a passionate wine collector and he says that he likes wine for the same reason he likes pearls… because you can never learn everything about either of them but you can sure have fun trying!