Helen has a broad and international commercial and academic background in the gem and jewellery industry, having worked with the trade, gemmological laboratories, and auction houses across Europe and Asia. During ten years as a jewellery specialist for Sotheby’s and Christie’s in London and Geneva, Helen handled, researched and valued many world-class gems and important collections. In Geneva she was responsible for business-getting for biannual multi-million dollar Magnificent Jewels sales; in London she was the specialist in charge of selling the private jewellery collection of HRH the Princess Margaret in 2006.

In 2011, she became Professeur d’Histoire du Bijoux at HEAD Genève, then joined Gübelin as Managing Director to create, launch and run a coloured gemstone Academy, which she built and operated out of Switzerland, Hong Kong and successfully took into China. In addition to writing and producing the Gübelin Academy courses, Helen also created the texts for the Gübelin Gem Lab Gem Portraits, has co-authored and catalogued the largest collection of ancient cameos in private hands, and has published and lectured widely on gems ancient through to modern. She has travelled extensively to gem shows and mine sites across the world, has taken on senior advisory and sourcing roles, and is a well-known and popular speaker at international gem and jewellery conferences.

Helen has a degree in Classics from Christ Church, Oxford, the FGA with distinction, is a Fellow of the Gemmological Associations of Great Britain and Hong Kong, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in London. She is the Senior Jewellery Curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and her first book for general readership, Precious, The History and Mystery of Gems Across Time, was published with Penguin in May 2024.