Noura Sakkijha shows me her jewellery stack over an omakase dinner in Dubai. You can hardly tell she just flew in from across the world from Toronto. At dinner, she gathers a group of ambitious women from all walks of life (including me), but now we’re all feasting on platters of shrimp tempura and sushi platters with our new matching Mejuri earrings. It’s a full circle moment for Noura, a third-generation jeweller from Jordan, who grew up watching her father in the industry, now building community through her brand Mejuri. Noura rejected the old-school notion that fine jewellery should be reserved for special occasions or gifted by men, and instead built Mejuri on everyday empowerment and self-expression. Nearly a decade after launching in Canada, she’s bringing her modern luxury vision back to the Middle East, starting in Kuwait and expanding across the MENA region, where jewellery has always been woven into daily life and identity. She chats with us about CEO life with a mission to remind the world that every woman should be able to buy herself a damn diamond.
CosmoME: How did you meet your co-founder? What’s the origin story of Mejuri?
Noura: My co-founder is actually my life partner. I’m from the background of jewellery; he’s super entrepreneurial. When we got married, we decided we wanted to create our business together. I left my job and started full-time, and a few years later he left his job and joined full-time. That was in 2015.
We both studied undergrad in Jordan, but then I moved to Canada for my MBA. Once I finished my MBA, we started Mejuri. I worked for five years in consulting and engineering before launching the brand in Canada.
CosmoME: You started in Canada—what made you decide to expand to the Middle East?
Noura: We expanded into the Middle East about three to four months ago. We started in Kuwait first because we’re working with Al Yasra Fashion and they’re based out of Kuwait, so it made complete sense for us to start in their homeland and then expand across the Middle East. It’s honestly a proud moment to have this 360 journey, kind of going back to the origins.
CosmoME: Could you tell me about your Jordanian heritage and how it has influenced your business practices?
Noura: I’m a third generation in my family to work in jewellery, so it’s kind of in my blood, in my DNA. I grew up learning so much about it, from craftsmanship to gemstones to what it means to wear fine jewellery. I got an inside view of the industry, which revealed aspects that felt too traditional for my liking—particularly the idea that fine jewellery is high-priced, only worn on special occasions, and traditionally bought by men for women. I saw an opportunity to design a brand for women to treat themselves, creating pieces that embody the message: “buy yourself a damn diamond.”
Women now – we live differently, we earn our own money, we make our own disposable income, and we make our own decisions. And there’s something underlying the idea of buying yourself jewellery. It’s investing in yourself. It’s not just about the jewellery. It’s empowerment, it’s self-expression. And so that is the underlying DNA of the brand.
CosmoME: Tell me more about the craftsmanship you witnessed growing up. Any specific stories about watching your ancestors?
Noura: My father was the key person in our family business. He was very selective about sourcing. He travelled to India and Belgium to acquire diamonds and select pieces himself for the Jordanian business, which is completely separate from Mejuri.
People used to come to him when we were in social settings and he would have his loupe and they’d ask him about checking the qualities of their diamonds. He really believed in quality. Jewellery is not an easy purchase because it’s very technical, so he always used to say that you have to keep your customers warm by being super transparent and honest. So I took these values in how we’re building Mejuri.
CosmoME: Can you give some tips for someone who doesn’t know how to buy or choose fine jewellery (aka me)?
Noura: First, if you have an active lifestyle, I would go for 14 karat or 10 karat gold because it’s stronger and doesn’t scratch as easily. The quality is really nice, and you can shower in it (same with silver). It’s all fine jewellery.
Second, I would start with simple pieces, like a simple chain, and then start to layer. We’re all about layering. If you look at me, I have piercings; I wear these two necklaces all the time; I wear three bracelets on average.
CosmoME: Ethics is a key brand ethos at Mejuri. Could you share more info on this?
Noura: Sustainability has been a core component of the business since the start. From the beginning, we prioritised manufacturers who are RJC certified (Responsible Jewellery Council) to make sure they follow best practices in how they deal with their employees and how they source.
Our gold is primarily certified recycled gold. We also use recycled sterling silver, which offsets carbon emissions. We’ve invested in what is probably my proudest sustainability project, a company called Regeneration. What they do is take old and abandoned mining sites that have been destroyed from mining, where the habitat has gone, and they re-mine the gold. Through that process, they remove the toxins, and they’ve been able to bring salmon back into some of the habitats. We’re the only jewellery company who has access to something called salmon gold. The sites they’re restoring are in the US and Northern territories in Canada.
CosmoME: What was the aha moment where you thought, “I need to do this, I need to launch”?
Noura: When I was making my own disposable income, if I wanted to buy jewellery for myself, I didn’t feel like there was a brand I felt like I belonged to. At that time in 2015, there were lots of new next-generation brands cropping up in clothing, fashion, makeup, and skincare, but there was nothing in jewellery. That felt like the right moment to do something different.
CosmoME: What are some challenges you’ve faced as a CEO and how do you move through them?
Noura: There are challenges every day. We’re a brand that has fundraised. We have investments from investors because we believed in our vision and wanted to scale fast. Fundraising is a really tough process. It’s not the easiest, especially when you’re raising for a brand and not AI, where everything is hot.
My mindset is: I know what I’m doing is something that people want, and I have huge conviction in what we’re doing and in our team. That puts me in a mindset of, if I believe I can do it, then I can do it. Mindset is such an important thing.
CosmoME: So, what does the future of fine jewellery look like?
Noura: I was just reading the McKinsey report they do every year. They’re talking about how fine jewellery is going to grow a lot faster than apparel in the next few years. The trajectory of jewellery in general is going towards self-expression and self-purchase, which is really what we were created for. Mejuri was mentioned in the report as one of the brands that’s rooted in and paving the way for this shift.
If you think about it, apparel and fashion are becoming a lot more muted and quieter, and I think you express yourself with other things like accessories. Given the price of gold and silver, fine jewellery is also becoming an investment with real value. There’s a ‘fewer but better’ approach for the next generation, and if you’re investing in something, fine jewellery is fantastic.
CosmoME: Last question. After you started your brand, did you feel the need to get more piercings?
Noura: Yes! That’s why I got two more here and one more here.