Meet the Founder
Jasmine Owens is the kind of woman who sees a gap and fills it — not because someone asked her to, but because she decided the wait was over.
She is the Founder and Director of GEMS Leadership Academy, the girl-specific year-round structured leadership development program in Orangeburg County, South Carolina. Since founding GEMS in 2024, Jasmine has served young women through a summer leadership program that she designed, funded, and facilitated from the ground up — while simultaneously building the infrastructure, the partnerships, and the vision for what GEMS is becoming.
Currently employed as the Sales Director & Executive Assistant to the President at the Orangeburg County Chamber of Commerce. A proud alumna of Johnson C. Smith University where she earned her degree in Psychology and was initiated into Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, Jasmine has always understood that the development of young women is not just a program — it is a calling. Her background in psychology shapes every element of how GEMS is designed — the sequencing of topics, the relationship between facilitator and participant, and the intentional building of confidence before everything else.
Jasmine is building a full pipeline from a girl's first Saturday morning in summer camp to the moment she completes the program. She believes that when you invest in a girl, you change everything around her.
GEMS is not just a program. It is Jasmine's life's work. And it is just getting started.
Built for Her. Built Here.
GEMS Leadership Academy was founded in 2024 with one clear belief — when girls are given the tools, the mentorship, and the community to grow, they become leaders who uplift families, strengthen communities, and inspire generations.
What started as a 4-week summer program has grown into a full leadership pipeline. In 2026 GEMS expands into the GLA Year-Round Academy — monthly virtual check-ins, quarterly in-person events, community service, a pitch competition, and a pathway to the Ambassador designation.
GEMS is not just a program. It is a world built specifically for her.
The Team Behind the Vision
FOUNDING ADVISORY BOARD
School Secretary — Dover Elementary School
Alaysia Kelly
Nicole Drake
HR Generalist — The Okonite Company
Jada Ulmer
Behavior Interventionist — Lake Marion High School
"She does not see who they are right now. She sees who they are becoming. And she builds every session, every event, and every experience around that version of them — the confident one, the bold one, the one who walks into a room and knows she belongs there. That is who GEMS is for. Not the girl she is today but the woman she is capable of being. Jasmine's job is simply to create the conditions for her to find her way there — and then get out of her way."
