DUBAI DIAMOND CONFERENCE

Ahmed Bin Sulayem

Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
DMCC

Ahmed Bin Sulayem is the Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of DMCC and has driven its growth from a start-up of 28 member companies in 2003 to the world’s leading free zone in 2023 with over 24,000 member companies from 180 countries, employing over 65,000 people.

Tasked with enhancing commodity trade flows through Dubai, DMCC has introduced to the market a number of value-added products and services under Mr Bin Sulayem’s leadership. In 2023, DMCC was named the ‘Global Free Zone of the Year’ by The Financial Times fDi Magazine, for a record nine consecutive years.

Mr Bin Sulayem oversaw the exponential growth of the DMCC Free Zone master development in Jumeirah Lakes Towers (JLT), a 200-hectare business and residential community in Dubai of over 100,000 people living and working in 87 towers. Mr Bin Sulayem also oversees the development of DMCC’s latest real estate project; the much-anticipated Uptown Dubai district.

Mr Bin Sulayem currently serves as the Chairman of the Dubai Diamond Exchange (DDE) and the Dubai Gold & Commodities Exchange (DGCX).

The Kimberley Process officially appointed the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as the first and only Arab country to Chair the Kimberley Process in November 2015. Shortly after, the UAE Ministry of Economy officially appointed Mr Bin Sulayem as the UAE’s Chair of the Kimberley Process for 2016.

H.E. Dr. Thani Bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi

Minister of State for Foreign Trade

His Excellency Dr. Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi is UAE Minister of State for Foreign Trade, a position he has held since July 2020. He is responsible for overseeing the development of non-oil foreign trade, the expansion of global trade partnerships and increasing UAE exports.

As part of his role, H.E. Al Zeyoudi leads the nation’s efforts to secure Comprehensive Economic Partnerships Agreements (CEPAs) with strategic allies around the world, which supports the UAE’s aim to boost exports by at least 50 percent by 2030. In May 2022, the first of these CEPAs, and the first ever bilateral deal signed by the UAE, was concluded with long-standing trade and investment partner India.

H.E. Al Zeyoudi’s experience of global trade negotiations was recognized with his appointment as Chair of the 13th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (MC13) held in Abu Dhabi in February 2024, where he was instrumental in ensuring the successful delivery of the Abu Dhabi Declaration, a package of agreements that helped to advance open, rules-based trade.

H.E. Al Zeyoudi also leads the efforts to enhance the UAE’s investment climate and strengthen its position as a prime destination for business and investments at both regional and global levels. is includes his portfolio as Minister in Charge of Talent Attraction and Retention, in which he ensures the best global talents have the pathways, incentives and opportunities to contribute to the UAE’s long-term economic objectives.

In October 2023, His Excellency was appointed as Chairman of Board of e Emirates Drug Establishment, a newly established federal agency responsible for regulating the UAE’s pharmaceutical and medical industries, promoting research and development in this sector, and ensuring the quality, safety, and availability of medical products in the UAE.

His Excellency also serves as Vice Chairman of the Industry Development Council and Chairman of the Council’s Executive Committee, as well as Deputy Chairman of Etihad Credit Insurance’s Board of Directors. He is also a member of the Supreme Committee for the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28), the decision-making body of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Prior to his appointment as the Minister of State for Foreign Trade, he served as Minister of Climate Change and Environment and supervised the implementation of the country’s strategies on climate action, agricultural development, animal husbandry and fisheries, in addition to combating desertification and preserving biodiversity.

H.E. Al Zeyoudi was named a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader in 2020 for his work in climate and environment and received the award for Excellence from the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf in 2015 in recognition of his pioneering efforts in the field of renewable energy.

H.E. Al Zeyoudi holds a BASc in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Tulsa, an MBA from the New York Institute of Technology, an MA in Project Management from the British University in Dubai, and a PhD in Strategy, Program and Project Management from Skema Business School in France.

Feryal Ahmadi

Chief Operating Officer DMCC

Overseeing its long-term strategic growth, Feryal has shaped the corporate governance structure at DMCC, fostering the development of high-growth, high-impact ecosystems that increase global trade and investment flows through Dubai. She has been instrumental in securing DMCC’s reputation as the world’s leading free zone, recipient of the Global Free Zone of the Year award by the Financial Times for nine consecutive years. With a member base of over 24,000 companies across diversified sectors, DMCC today contributes to 11% of Dubai FDI and 7% of GDP. Feryal leads the implementation of DMCC’s Smart and Sustainable District Strategy and oversees the development of its iconic mixed-used districts of Jumeirah Lakes Towers (JLT) and Uptown Dubai.

Anshul Gandhi

CEO
Choron DMCC

Anshul Gandhi was raised in Antwerp, Belgium and attended the Antwerp International School before graduating with a degree in Accounting & Finance from the University of Manchester. Anshul kickstarted his journey in the diamond industry by obtaining a Graduate Gemologist degree from the Gemological Institute of America in New York.

In 2010, Anshul joined the Choron Group, a leading midstream diamond company, to helm the rough diamond division. Over the years, he was instrumental in launching a vertical responsible for manufacturing exceptional rough diamonds as well as managing global polished diamond operations. Today, he is the CEO of the Choron Group and oversees major strategic business decisions and leads key corporate functions. Under Anshul’s leadership, the Choron Group has transformed into a vertically integrated player from mines to market with extensive supply contracts from mining companies and divserse distribution to retailers and luxury brands globally.

Anshul is also a Non-Executive Board Member of Burgundy Diamond Mines, a publicly listed diamond mining company. He has over 15 years of experience in the diamond industry, with a broad knowledge of rough and polished diamonds.

Al Cook

Chief Executive Officer
De Beers UK Limited

Al Cook became Chief Executive Officer of De Beers Group in February 2023.

He joined De Beers from Equinor, where he was Executive Vice President of Exploration and Production International, overseeing businesses across Africa, the Americas and Europe. Prior to this, he held the position of Executive Vice President for Global Strategy and Business Development, where he led the development of Equinor’s energy transition strategy.

Before joining Equinor in 2016, Cook worked for BP for 20 years. He took on a range of commercial, project development and operations roles in the United Kingdom and United States, including acting as Offshore Installation Manager on the Cleeton Platform in the North Sea. He worked in Vietnam and Russia before moving to Azerbaijan in 2009. Here he led the development of the Southern Gas Corridor, a $40bn project that brought natural gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe for the first time. Cook’s final role at BP was Chief of Staff to the CEO.

Originally from the United Kingdom, Cook holds a master’s degree in Natural Sciences from St John’s College, University of Cambridge. In 2005, he completed the International Executive Programme at INSEAD in France. He is a trustee on the board of The Power of Nutrition, a charity supporting infant health.

Allison Charalambous

VP of Responsible Sourcing and Sustainability
Brilliant Earth

Allison Charalambous is the VP of Responsible Sourcing and Sustainability at Brilliant Earth. With over 10 years of experience in environmental, social, and governance practices, Allison utilizes her expertise to drive forward Brilliant Earth’s four Mission pillars: transparency, sustainability, compassion, and inclusion. These pillars touch traceability and responsible sourcing in fine jewelry supply chains, Brilliant Earth’s public ESG Goals and retail footprint, grant partnerships through the Brilliant Earth Foundation, and Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging programs. Under Allison, Brilliant Earth released its inaugural 2021 Mission Report and ESG Goals and annual reports on progress under Brilliant Earth's Mission and ESG Goals.

Allison comes with a background in the apparel industry where she led the Social Responsibility and Regulatory Compliance Programs and the Sustainability Council for the brands Aeropostale, Lucky Brand, Nautica, Forever 21, and Brooks Brothers. She holds degrees from UC Berkeley and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in International Relations, and is fluent in Mandarin and Spanish. But her hardest job by far is being a ‘good’ mother to her 8-year old son.

Brilliant Earth (Nasdaq: BRLT) is a digitally native, omnichannel fine jewelry company and a global leader in ethically sourced fine jewelry. With 2023 full-year revenue of $446 million and 11 consecutive quarters of positive adjusted EBITDA since its initial public offering in 2021, the Company’s mission since its 2005 founding has been to create a more transparent, sustainable, and compassionate jewelry industry. Headquartered in San Francisco, CA and Denver, CO, Brilliant Earth has more than 35 showrooms across the United States and has served customers in over 50 countries worldwide.

Felicitas Morhart

Professor Dr.
University of Lausanne

Felicitas Morhart is Full Professor of Marketing at the University of Lausanne and Founder of the Swiss Centre for Luxury Research. Her teaching and research centres on consumer psychology, luxury consumption, and the evolution of the luxury consumer. Her research has been published in top national and international journals. She also coaches managers in the luxury and premium industries on transformational change. In 2022, she co-founded OriginALLuxury, a multistakeholder initiative for traceability technologies in the luxury industries.

Kieran Dobson

Head of EMEA ESG
S&P Global Sustainable1

Dr. Kieran Dobson holds a Ph.D. in Applied Economics from KU Leuven where he led a team of researchers studying social entrepreneurship and venture philanthropy. Before joining Sustainable1 and S&P Global, Kieran was the Energy and Automotive ESG analyst at the asset manager RobecoSAM, where he identified, analysed, and quantified financially-material sustainability aspects within these industries for the Corporate Sustainability Assessment. Today, Kieran is the Head of ESG Client Engagement for EMEA, engaging with internal and external clients on integrating, applying, and developing S&P Global ESG datasets, products, and research. Kieran specialises in partnering with financial service clients; engaging with clients representing various asset classes to implement ESG initiatives, themes, and data within their workflows and benchmarking to mitigate ESG risks, address ESG Regulations, and enhance their sustainability product strategies.

Furthermore, Kieran is the Global Head of Sustainable Stock Exchanges, focusing engagements to facilitate partnership between Exchanges and S&P Global to help drive the sustainable finance market. Central to this role represents identifying material sustainability details for private and listed entities, addressing both local and global nuances, and to identify opportunities that will contribute to the development of sustainable finance markets.

Laurent Venetz

Executive Vice President
ConsuTrust SA

Laurent Venetz is the founder and Executive Vice President of ConsuTrust SA, a firm engaged in anti-counterfeiting operations and in-depth supply chain investigations.

In addition to addressing the investigative requirements within the realm of intellectual property, ConsuTrust SA is supporting clients in various sectors beyond IP, notably through comprehensive supply chain investigations. These encompass a broad spectrum of areas, including industrial setups, fraud prevention, commodity sourcing, and ethical sourcing.

By leveraging its expertise and investigative capabilities, ConsuTrust contributes to ensuring the integrity and authenticity of supply chains, thereby strengthening its commitment to safeguarding brands, their assets, and the protection of consumers.

Prior to founding ConsuTrust SA, Mr. Venetz directed the Global Anti-Counterfeiting programme of the Nestlé Group. In this capacity, he put in place one of the leading brand protection programmes in the FMCG industries and the most advanced anti-counterfeiting programme in the Food and Beverage sector. Before that, he directed the trademark function of a fast-moving pharmaceutical company and worked as a trademark attorney in a law firm in Geneva advising famous Swiss watch makers.

Martin Leake

Special Advisor Precious Stones
DMCC

Dr Martin Leake is a Special Advisor for Precious Stones at DMCC. Appointed to the position in June 2018, Martin is responsible for expanding and diversifying DMCC’s Precious Stone portfolio and helping Dubai grow into the world’s number one diamond-trading hub.

As Company Secretary of the Dubai Diamond Exchange (DDE), Martin focuses on driving trade to through the Exchange by forging, and strengthening commercial partnerships with stakeholders across the diamond industry, to improve governance, compliance and responsible sourcing. He also chairs the organising committee for DMCC’s flagship diamond event, the Dubai Diamond Conference (DDC).

With over 15 years of experience in marketing both rough and polished diamonds, Martin is an expert on the economics of diamond mining, and an internationally recognised exploration geologist in gold, diamonds, copper, iron ore and coal.

Martin is a Board Member of the World Diamond Council, a member of the Executive Committee of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses (WFDB) and a Certified Six Sigma Black Belt.

He holds a BSc (Hons) in Geology and a PhD in Exploration Geology from the University of Portsmouth in the United Kingdom.

Nathalie Ruffin

Head of Operations
Ferring

Nathalie Ruffin is a French qualified attorney at law with extensive experience in defending well-known brands against counterfeiting, parallel imports and other acts of trademark infringement.

Nathalie has spent most of her career in private practice, in her last position as partner in the Intellectual Property of the Paris office of Bird & Bird. During 15 years, she advised international and domestic clients on anti-counterfeiting strategies and provided them with global solutions and multi-disciplined approach to enforce their rights in Europe and Asia. She litigated before civil and criminal courts for a broad range of industries including luxury, electronics, media, sportswear, fashion and consumers goods.

In 2015, Nathalie joined the industry as Head of Brand Enforcement and litigation at Maus Frères group, owner of Lacoste, Gant and Aigle brands.

Then, she joined the legal department of Ferring Pharmaceuticals where she was in of pre-contentious and contentious matters, domain-named management and the brand enforcement programme. In 2021, she has joined Ferring Ventures as Chief of Staff of the Executive Chairman and she is now Head of Operations.

Pranay Narvekar

Partner
Pharos Beam Consulting LLP

Pranay Narvekar, partner at the Management Consulting company Pharos Beam Consulting LLP, is a leading expert on many of the crucial strategic, financial and structural problems facing the diamond industry pipeline. Pranay regularly presents at International Conferences and has drawn considerable industry praise for his quite accurate forecasting of the diamond industry. From 2017, Pranay also authors the Tacy Diamond Pipeline, in association with Chaim Even Zohar. All his articles analyzing the state of the industry have been well received by the industry. Pranay was previously the CEO of the G&J KYC Information Centre, which launched the MyKYCBank project of the GJEPC.

Robert Wake-Walker

Consultant
WWW International Diamond Consultants

Robert Wake-Walker is a consultant with WWW International Diamond Consultants, an independent diamond valuation, strategy and consultancy firm advising a range of governments, listed and private mining companies and financial institutions.

Robert’s consultancy practice within WWW focuses primarily on providing a broad range of diamond services to mining companies, institutional banks, structured credit funds, hedge funds and private equity investors. Robert also carries out rough diamond valuations for government departments and mining companies, and advises on fundraising, restructuring, marketing and ESG strategies throughout the market pipeline.

Since 1996, WWW has been at the forefront of delivering independent rough and polished diamond pricing services. WWW is proud to represent an extensive list of clients: including many key players in the international diamond finance market, mining companies, governments, and international financial news agencies who have published its pricing data. Its team members advise and provide strategy services to a number of stakeholders in the international diamond trade who rely on experienced, independent market insights.

Prior to joining WWW, Robert was a lawyer with White & Case in London where he advised on a range of leveraged buyouts, disposals, restructurings and debt finance transactions for Private Equity funds, public companies and credit institutions.

Vinit Jogani

Director
Diatech Platforms

Vinit Jogani, Director at the Lemon-Diatech Group, brings a robust background in software engineering and technology leadership, notably from his tenure at Google. Having worked on building advanced algorithms for graph search and fingerprinting, co-inventing a published patent, and developing groundbreaking GNNs, his experience reflects deep technical know-how of large-scale problems.

Since the last few years, he has been focusing on leveraging technology for addressing the needs of the gems and jewellerry industry, working on cutting-edge solutions involving Advanced Analytics, Generative AI, and Blockchain at Diatech Platforms. Particularly, Diatech's AI and Analytics help guide many in the diamond and jewellery supply chain on decisions related to sourcing, pricing, planning, product design, marketing, understanding consumer preferences, and more.

Diatech is also a leading solution provider of traceability and sustainability solutions for the industry with Diatrace. Diatrace leverages state-of-the-art Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, and encryption technologies to ensure every diamond's journey is ethically traceable from mine to market. Through Diatrace, Vinit's expertise in technology and his commitment to positive social and environmental impact converge, promising a more transparent, responsible, and sustainable future for the diamond industry.

Wesley Tucker

CEO
Tracr

Wesley is an experienced corporate innovator, passionate about the positive impact mining can have in previously disadvantaged regions. He has 20 years of experience in corporate innovation bringing deep understanding of provenance in complex supply chains, industry expertise and cutting-edge digital technologies. He also serves as a non-executive director of A-Deus a Scottish & Nigerian start-up looking to bring hydrogen power to the African continent.

Since 2021 he has served as the Tracr CEO growing the Tracr platform to be the world’s leading distributed digital platform for tracing natural diamonds from source bringing you the ability to explore the provenance, authenticity, and unique story of the journey your diamond has taken along the diamond value chain. Under his leadership Tracr has loaded over 2.4 million rough diamonds on the platform at source and 350k polished - representing over 70% of De Beers production and over 20% of the world’s diamonds by value. Tracr was named on the Forbes Blockchain50 for the third time in 2023.

Avi Krawitz

Founder and CEO
Diamond Gems with Avi Krawitz

Avi is a creator, consultant and publisher whose expertise spans the full scope of the diamond market.

Avi previously served as senior analyst for the Rapaport Group, where he provided in-depth analysis about diamond industry news, events, and market conditions, and hosted countless podcasts and webinars.

He currently works as an independent consultant, journalist, and content creator, using his unique voice to help others understand the diamond market and experience the industry through creative storytelling. His rich content provides unique opportunities for companies seeking to tell their diamond story to a wider, more diverse audience. As a top influencer and industry thought leader, Avi's opinion and analysis is widely followed and sought after throughout the globe.

Margot Stuart

Co-Founder
OriginAll

Margot brings over 18 years of expertise in combatting illicit trade and counterfeiting. As an early member of the OECD Taskforce on Charting Illicit Trade, she has been at the forefront of initiatives co-developed alongside international organizations such as INTERPOL and WCO.

Beyond countering illicit trade, Margot has a proven track record in establishing and scaling startups. Her role in steering operational activities at a MedTech startup has equipped her with a deep understanding of regulatory and quality mandates. Over the years, she has become a recognized subject matter expert in traceability and product data integrity, with profound insights into Sustainable Business Management.

Today, Margot co-leads the ORIGINALLUXURY initiative, uniting over 200 luxury stakeholders and 20 technology partners to promote transparency and traceability.

Hans Schwab

Co-Founder
OriginAll

Hans Schwab co-founded numerous ventures, with a focus over the past two decades on developing platforms that empower people to make better, safer product choices. Before co-founding OriginAll, he was the Chief Information Officer of a publicly traded Swiss cybersecurity company. Earlier in his career he spent 10 years in various management positions with the World Economic Forum in Geneva, Switzerland, including as a Member of their Executive Board and seven years in senior management positions with a Swiss multinational company in the security industry.

Hans was an early member of the OECD Task Force on Charting illicit trade and from 2014 to 2016 he was a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Human Rights and a member of the World Economic Forum’s Meta-Council on the The Illicit Economy.