De beers family biography interview

Security is discreetly tight at the London office of the world's largest producer of diamonds, De Beers, on Charterhouse Street in the Hatton Garden gem district. Hardly surprising, give that it's claimed that diamonds sufficient to fund a lifetime of ease and comfort can be secreted about a naked human body – in the mouth, nose, ears and, er, elsewhere. It's easy to see how even the most upright of citizens could be tempted to stray from the straight and narrow by such dazzling riches.

'We call them treasures of nature,' says De Beers group CEO Gareth Penny. 'It's not like buying a car or a dress or a handbag – diamonds have a long-term sustainable value. There are not many fashion accessories that you can say that about.'

Once inside De Beers' inner sanctum, the sorting room, glamour is in short supply, despite the Croesan value of merchandise being assessed. It's a workplace, not a film set, and looks like an old-fashioned schoolroom, with tall windows and rows of white-topped benches.

Even the stones themselves – washed but otherwise as they come out of the ground – are low on glamour at this stage. Rough diamonds, they are De Beers' stock in trade and look like giant sea salt crystals. The sparkle comes later, when they are cut, polished and set by the numerous specialists further up the supply chain, before being sold by jewellers all over the world.

Penny himself is equally businesslike. Well set up and wearing a bespoke dark suit and tie, the 47-year-old is bluff, affable and definitely a bling-free zone: you don't have to be encrusted in diamonds in order to sell them.

Besides, too much public display would be impolitic, given the shocking trading period that De Beers - and the diamond industry generally – has had recently. Even in a climate where we've all become used to tales of recessionary woe, things were pretty grim in the gem trade. In the month after the collapse of Le

Stephen Lussier was chomping at the bit as he sat on stage during a 2019 diamond conference in Dubai. Dressed in his trademark cream suit, he slid toward the edge of his seat as he waited his turn to speak, confident in his ability to unbundle everything his fellow panelist was saying to prop up lab-grown diamonds against the natural product.

“I couldn’t disagree more,” Lussier retorted, and went on to dismantle the speaker’s claim that the value of a diamond lies in its packaging — that the origin, whether mined or made, doesn’t guarantee value. Lussier weaved through key descriptors, citing the “rarity,” “preciousness” and “enduring value” that underpin the appeal of natural diamonds.

It’s a message that has taken him a 37-year career to fine-tune, and it’s one he’s still determined to imprint on the industry’s psyche as he steps back from his role as De Beers’ executive vice president for consumer markets. On the eve of his retirement, Lussier reflects on the evolution of the “diamond dream,” a concept he unabashedly claims as his brainchild.

“It needs to continue to change as our consumers evolve, but the core elements of the dream remain fundamental,” he explains in an interview with Rapaport Magazine. “To me, it’s basically the concept of the brand. We’ve created the emotional connection of a diamond, establishing meaning for a product which transcends its physical self.”

Brand extension

Lussier has had a front-row seat for this evolution. After all, he has helped shape the industry’s storyline through De Beers’ efforts to create new product categories and expand existing ones.

He entered the industry in 1981 at a pivotal time for the diamond market. Fresh out of Columbia Business School, he landed his first job at ad agency N. W. Ayer and was placed on the De Beers account by chance — one of many “lucky” moments he highlights in his career.

The brief on that first campaign was to convince men to “show her you’d

Wine isn’t just made, it’s crafted by the unwavering expertise of a Winemaker, sometimes old traditions are passed down by generations and on other occasions, new people venture into the industry, introducing us to new creations. This series of Winemaker Interviews will help you uncover the vast world and skills of how the artists passionate about wine make the world a bubbly place.

In this article we speak with Petri de Beer, an amazing Winemaker from South Africa, let’s discover a little about his time in the Wine Industry.

Tell Us About Yourself

“These types of questions are kind of hard for me. I always find it awkward to talk about myself. I come from an agricultural family (for me unfortunately beef cattle and maize) coming from a farming community in the North West province of South Africa. So it does feel sometimes that I always had a predetermination to end up in the agricultural sector, not that I am complaining because if you are in the wine industry you know how exciting it is. I did my Masters degree in Wine Chemistry at Stellenbosch university after which I started studying Agricultural Economics part time. I am currently busy with my Ph.D. in Agricultural economics. I am looking at trying to integrate biological and international trade models for grape producers to make it more accessible and usable on farm level.”

How Did You Become Involved In The Wine Industry?

“Like I said I come from an agricultural background, but not out of a wine background. How my journey started was quite by accident. I was about 17 and trying to decide between animal husbandry or agronomy when a good friend of mine’s mother that studied at Stellenbosch in passing just added that the winemaking students at Stellenbosch always seemed to enjoy what they were doing. I was just “woh” hold up you can study to be a winemaker? And the winemaking bug has go