JNA Awards 2012 Jewellery Industry Best Practices

27 JNA AWARDS 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award: Nicky Oppenheimer For the first time in its 30-year history, JewelleryNews Asia (JNA) is bestowing a Lifetime Achievement Award. The recipient, Nicky Oppenheimer, former Chairman of the De Beers Group, is being awarded JNA’s highest accolade for his outstanding contribution to the world diamond industry over the course of a career that spans 44 years. The third generation of the Oppenheimers to lead De Beers, Nicky Oppenheimer has added his own, distinguished contribution to a family legend that dates back to 1902 when his grandfather, Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, arrived in Kimberley to work as a diamond buying agent. Nicky Oppenheimer presided over important changes in the history of the De Beers Group. Under his leadership, De Beers opened up new markets for diamond jewellery in China and India, and established the De Beers’ Best Practice Principles (BPPs), a standard of ethical business behaviour that has set the benchmark for other global industries. A graduate of Christ Church College, Oxford, Nicky Oppenheimer joined Anglo American in 1968, and was appointed as a director of the company six years later. In 1978, he became a director of De Beers, rising to become Chairman of the Group some 20 years later. “For my family, diamonds are not a business; they are a passion. And with the success we have enjoyed has come a clear sense of the social responsibilities we hold. It was my grandfather who originally set out the vision which I have strived all my life to follow when he famously said, on the foundation of Anglo American Corporation ‘The aim of this group is, and will remain, to make a profit for our stakeholders but to do so in such a way as to make a real and lasting contribution to the communities in which we operate.’ “From our partnerships with governments in southern Africa to our pioneering HIV programmes and, as of next year, the completion of the transfer of De Beers’ sales operations from London to Botswana, I am proud of the legacy that my family leaves behind. “It is, of course, sad that, after many generations, the Oppenheimer family’s relationship with De Beers comes to an end. But, we are leaving our long association with the diamond industry comforted in the knowledge that, in spite of many challenges, we have made a positive contribution to the industry. Today, diamonds remain loved by consumers across the world in a manner that cannot be matched by any other luxury goods. This is a testimony not only to the contribution of my family over the generations, but to the fervour for diamonds displayed by our partners across the world.” Former Chairman of the De Beers Group, Nicky Oppenheimer