Who Is Gianna

A woman with a mission to make a difference, Gianna Driver is passionate about empowering global women, a cause deeply rooted in her own history.

Through the efforts of her namesake company, GIANNA, Gianna regularly travels to villages abroad to meet with women artisans and develop ethnically-inspired fashion and home décor. The process of empowering women begins through self-sufficiency; by taking away the immediacy of financial hardship, space is created for education, microfinance, and transforming adversity into opportunity.

The Journey

Born in the backwoods of eastern Texas to a Filipino mother and a Caucasian-cattle-rancher-father, Gianna spent her early years living in a women’s shelter after her parents’ divorce. Daily interaction with shelter occupants sparked a passion in Gianna for women’s empowerment and equality. Although she didn’t realize it at the time, the seeds of her future career were planted at that women’s shelter…

Gianna learned quickly that education was her ticket out of the poverty into which she was born. Her rigorous studies eventually resulted in beginning college at age 16 (the first in her family to go) and later attending the Wharton School.

After graduation and a cross-country move to San Francisco, Gianna began a career in commercial insurance, only to realize her heart was in the developing world helping women in circumstances similar to her mother’s. She felt that she had been given immense opportunities in America, and she wanted to use these to empower women abroad, women similar to her mother.

GIANNA is the manifestation of a dream come true.

Gianna resigned from her corporate job in 2005, founded GIANNA, and began meeting with women artisans in developing countries. The result is the fair trade company you see today.