It was standing room only at The Gallery & Auditorium at Manhattan's Time & Life Building with more than 300 diamond and jewelry industry members participating in the General Membership meeting of the Diamond & Importers Association of America (DMIA).
DMIA president, Ronald Friedman stated, “ The evening was a very exciting event for the DMIA and its members. De Beers was very engaged and this was a win-win occasion, for this leading, global producer and supplier to the market as well as for the US industry and trade."
The event, named "An Evening with the De Beers Group," was held on January 8th, with Philippe Mellier, Chief Executive Officer of the De Beers Group; Varda Shine, Executive Vice President, Global Sightholder Sales; and Stephen Lussier, Executive Vice President, Marketing, addressing the audience and meeting under the title "Diamond Equity and the De Beers Group."
In presenting the various elements of De Beers' "diamond equity overview," the executives spoke in broad terms about the company's long-term capital investments in relation to the expected rough supply and demand in the downstream markets.
They noted that De Beers invests significant efforts to try and understand what consumers want now, and in the future, thus helping their downstream clients gain insights how the various categories of polished diamonds are expected to perform.
The De Beers speakers emphasized the need to preserve and protect the integrity of the supply pipeline by upholding the highest ethical standards.
They also touched upon the issue of synthetic diamonds, announcing that later this year De Beers will introduce new testing tools, in particular for the screening and identification of smaller sized synthetic diamonds that have been encountered in the polished diamond market.
While the speakers did not relate specifically to the diamond industry and trade's endeavor to undertake a global, generic marketing campaign for diamonds and diamond jewelry, they did emphasize that their efforts to stimulate market demand will focus on the company's Forevermark brand, and De Beers Diamond Jewellers - its retail joint venture with LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton.
