Twelve days before Christmas 2012, the Newmarket, Auckland, headquarters of Kagi crystal beads wholesale was buzzing. Maybe Kat Gee’s 20-odd employees mainline the fizz from their boss.

Gee bounds from her backroom office, crackling with an optimism that would make a sick cat feel great. “These are the busiest days in the year,” she says with a broad smile. “We had the office Christmas party last night. Now where shall we go for coffee?”

Her shoes are great and the string of fat, lustrous pearls, from our her own range, around her neck adds a look of sumptuous class.

She calls it “luxe” and it’s a knockout.

Gee is one of the Irish Gees who dropped the ‘Mc’ off their surname centuries ago. The creative Gees. And the entrepreurial ones, too.

Her father Bill Gee was so successful with his company Spanbilt, he ‘retired’ at 48. (Think Versatile, Ideal and Total Span.) Now his daughter — with the business she’s built from nothing to one of New Zealand’s best selling turquoise beads brands in six-and-a-half-years — is proving she has the gene.

The key aspects of her business model sound deceptively simple. First, provide a range of quality, fashion-focused jewellery that sits in a new niche between high end, Tiffany-style ‘generic’ pieces, and cheap and chunky fashion jewellery.

The Kagi range uses genuine pearls and gemstones including turquoise, Brazilian agate and red coral, plus more modern, ‘smarter’ elements such as cubic zirconia and stainless steel. “Stainless steel not only happens to be half the price of silver, but it’s stronger, more durable and

tarnish resistant,” says Gee. Although her designs are exquisite, prices — at between $130 and $209 for heirloom-quality pearl necklaces — are realistic.

Gee calls it affordable luxury. She slips off her necklace and unclips the heart-shaped pendant. “I can put anything from the Kagi range on here,” she says, neatly illustrating the second part of her business model: repeat sales.

The other parts of her business strategy include producing designs offshore — “the only way to be price competitive” — and the initial decision to buy an existing business.

Gee also decided to wholesale to selected jewellery shops. “We wanted to have our brand in as many stores as we could, so offering choice for women — and wholesale — was the best method of achieving that.”

Every time Kagi has a major success, she opens a bottle of champagne. “We hit 100 stores in New Zealand yesterday,” she says. “And we have another dent in the roof to prove it.”

If you want to start a jewellery business, it helps to be dux of a school where the principal believes girls can do anything, you take art for School C and go on to an honours degree in design.

It also helps to be part of an entrepreneurial, business-focused family. Her parents, Bill and Gillian Gee, are an example of what’s possible when you have great ideas and work hard. Gillian sits on the Kagi board; Bill still works from

his off-site office. “He loves it. It’s his passion.” That’s probably why, at 24, Gee left her graphic design job in Parnell and opened a jewellery business. 

“I was sitting on our jetty in the Marlborough Sounds and realised that designing corporate identities, brochures and annual reports for other people wasn’t going to set my soul on fire. I yearned for something physical and beautiful and jewellery was the first thing that came to mind, so I went about making it happen.”

She’d loved jewellery since she was a kid watching her grandmother dress for parties, and rummaging through her jewellery box. “She always looked immaculate, with fantastic accessories.

“My grandmother lived in the Dutch East Indies and during the war was in a Japanese concentration camp. She saved her jewellery by putting it down her underwear.

They lost everything during the war and afterwards she had to sell the jewellery to survive. But the one thing she didn’t sell was her string of Mikimoto pearls.

“Jewellery, and how special it can be, set the tone for me ... that special strand of pearls.”

Her Godmother, Sylvia Lukey, also loves “never fake” jewellery. “I used to fiddle around making  jewellery myself,” says Lukey. “I’d make it and give it to friends.”

Meanwhile, young Katherine (as she was then), made her own  ‘jewels’ out of Fimo and gemstones and sold it too. “I made it when I was eight and again at 12 and made $40, all of which went on [food from] the tuck shop. The margins are pretty good when your mum buys the ingredients!”

Lukey was convinced, from the time her Goddaughter was two, that she would go far. “There’s an innate thing with that girl,” she says. “She has this driving force, she knew where she wanted to go. She gives herself goals, weighs up the risks, then plans how to get there.

“And she’s beautiful inside, not a false person, not ruthless. She’s always had this sunniness, but hard working with it. When she decides to do something, she makes it happen.”

Gee’s decision to make the business happen was followed by six-and-a-half years of 60 to 70-hour working weeks. “I knew nothing about business,” she says. “I had to learn on the go.”