EXCLUSIVE: The Gemological Institute of America’s CEO Susan Jacques Talks Diamonds, Mining and Gem Trends
The discovery of the Lucara Diamond in August in the Karowe Mine in northeast Botswana rocked the jewelry industry, but few were as moved by the historic find as Susan Jacques, the president and chief executive officer of the Gemological Institute of America.
“As a gem geek, this is like finding the Holy Grail,” said Jacques. At 2,492 carats, the Lucara Diamond is the second largest diamond ever found, after the Cullinan Diamond, at 3,106 carats, which was discovered in 1905. “More than 100 years have gone by to find a second stone that is as remarkable,” observed Jacques. “These are treasures of Mother Nature.”
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The Cullinan Diamond was cut into 105 stones, but nine very major ones totaling more than 1,000 carats, Jacques said. “Some are in the Crown Jewels worn by the Queen and other members of the royal family. You see them at coronations and funerals.”
Now the world awaits the fate of the Lucara Diamond, and the value that could be ascribed to it.
“I’m sure the Lucara Diamond Corp. and the Botswana government are discussing the future of the stone,” Jacques said. “I know [outgoing] President Masisi would love it to stay as a rough stone, perhaps purchased by a museum for all the world to see.” The diamond could be sold through an auction or at the diamond market in Antwerp, Belgium.
“William Lamb, the CEO of Lucara Diamond, is working with the Botswana government to best explore how to maximize this incredible discovery and truly bring it to the marketplace,” Jacques said. “I don’t think they’re rushing. There will be a lot of evaluation. It takes a long time to determine the best way to maximize the value of the stone. And even if the decision is to sell it as a rough crystal, whomever purchases it will take time to really assess it and determine that. And that depends on the size of the multiple stones that could be cut from it. You’re not likely to cut one single, very large stone. So there’s a lot of planning that goes into determining how to maximize the value.…I think it could be in the tens of millions of dollars, but depends on what they do with the stone.
“It would be incredible if they could find a donor, or a museum that’s going to spend tens of millions of dollars for people to see something so rare because large diamonds invariably are cut into smaller polished diamonds. That’s what normally happens,” Jacques added, citing a 900-carat stone from the Let?eng Diamond Mine in Lesotho, the highest diamond mine in the world, from which Van Cleef & Arpels produced a suite of jewelry pieces to sell.
The Hope Diamond, said Jacques, is the number-one visited item in the Smithsonian Institute collection every year. “Diamonds hold that much allure.”
The GIA Mission
GIA, a nonprofit organization founded in 1931 by Robert Shipley and based in Carlsbad, Calif., focuses on research, detecting treatments on stones, and providing reports on diamonds, colored gemstones and pearls, so dealers, buyers and consumers know the quality of their stones. GIA developed the industry standards for grading diamonds — carat, cut, clarity and color — known as the four Cs.
GIA has 11 laboratories around the world providing the diamond grading and colored gemstone and pearl reports that generate the revenues enabling the organization to perform its activities. The majority of GIA clients are diamond manufacturers. GIA reports follow the diamonds through the supply chain to consumers, and uses the same grading process on lab-grown and natural diamonds.
“We are 100 percent able to differentiate between the laboratory-grown and the natural stone, and we have a lot of instruments we develop solely for use within our internal grading capacity,” said Jacques. “It is almost impossible for most people to look at a lab-grown and a natural stone, side-by-side, and make a determination. It’s even difficult for gemologists. It requires the skill sets of the laboratories.”
The labs also identify treatments on gemstones that need to be disclosed, including one utilizing high temperature and high pressure to decolorize gems. “There are occasions where people will try to increase the value of the stone, and it could be through a treatment,” Jacques said. “It requires scientific analysis to make that determination. We provide reports on different treatments that make the diamond look better than how they would look naturally.”
GIA also offers professional educational programs on jewelry design, bench jewelry and gemology, and helps educate artisan colored stone miners.
Jacques has been at the helm of the Gemological Institute of America, also known as GIA, for 10 years. Prior to joining GIA she served as president and CEO of Borsheims Fine Jewelry and Gifts in Omaha, Neb. She joined the company in 1982 as an appraiser and sales associate, and in 1994, was appointed president and CEO by Warren Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, the holding company that includes Borsheims. She received her graduate gemologist diploma from GIA in Santa Monica in 1980. Jacques is also a fellow of the Gemmological Association of Great Britain.
Discussing how GIA has evolved during her tenure as CEO, Jacques said, “Helping to ensure consumers are confident in the products they’re buying has always been the mission of GIA — to ensure the public trust. We go about that in many different ways, but primarily through our education and laboratory services, and research underpinning all of that, as well as instrument development.”
Jacques said GIA has been undergoing “a digital transformation,” advancing AI as well as machine learning to support its education programs and the work at its laboratories.
Working With Miners
Jacques also said there’s been “extraordinary work” done with small-scale artisanal miners of colored stones, primarily in Africa.
“We actually have folks that go into the mining fields and educate miners with very little knowledge about the stones they find and their value and offer to brokers or buyers. At a very elemental level, we provide them with wonderful waterproof booklets with photographs and plastic trays so when they’re out digging gemstones in a river or in the mud, they can separate them out and distinguish through pictorial photographs within the booklet, whether it’s a quartz, an amethyst, tanzanite, rubies or sapphires. We help them segregate their goods and understand which are more valuable than others. It’s remarkable to know you’re changing lives and really helping people. We focus on women miners primarily because they are the caregivers for children.”
The initiative began in 2017 in Tanzania, and was expanded in 2019 to reach thousands of miners in Kenya, Madagascar, Rwanda and Zambia, working with Pact, a Washington, D.C.-based international development nonprofit organization. Artisanal mining accounts for about 80 percent of colored stone production, and in diamonds, about 10 percent, according to Jacques.
Advancing Traceability
“One of the biggest trends in the market today is traceability, and now we’re working on a program with diamonds as well as colored gems, making sure we are science-based, not just using expert opinion, in the work we do on traceability.”
GIA includes RFID reference numbers on some reports for cultured pearls that have the devices embedded to advance tracing capabilities and source transparency. “Almost all gems and gem materials go through many hands before they reach the jewelry counter and consumer. We’re hoping to bring more traceability to the diamond world as well, particularly with the De Beers Tracr program.”
That’s a digital blockchain platform placing the diamonds at the country and potentially the mine where they came from, creating traceability and more transparency than has been the case previously in the diamond mining industry. At mines around the world, GIA collects gems, digging for them or purchasing them from miners or through the marketplace to build a collection of colored stones and a “vast” database for determining their origin.
Seventy percent of global diamond mining is done by De Beers, as well as Alrosa, Russia’s largest diamond mining company. Due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, diamonds from Russia are now sanctioned by the G7 nations, which account for about 75 percent of all diamond consumption. The U.S. alone accounts for 55 percent of diamond consumption. “Knowing where these gems come from is very important given the geopolitical concerns,” remarked Jacques.
With colored stones, traceability is more difficult because 80 percent of them come from artisanal miners. In addition, “Everything changes hands somewhat frequently, and there is obviously proprietary information. A lot of dealers don’t want you knowing where they procure their goods because they feel they’d be taken out of the supply chain if you knew,” Jacques said. “A lot of governments are working hard to improve the traceability of gem materials.” Governments benefit from the tracing via the taxes they can collect, versus if gemstones are smuggled out of countries.
Gem Trends
Addressing the issue of natural diamonds versus lab-grown diamonds, Jacques suggested that many consumers are not aware of the importance of mining. “The mining companies build hospitals and clinics. They will provide housing and work in remote areas for the mining community.…In 1966 when diamonds were first discovered in Botswana, it was one of the poorest countries in the world, and actually had six miles of paved road. Today, it is a thriving democracy.”
She said De Beers, which has been mining there for 50 years, established agreements that benefit both the mining company extracting the stones and communities where diamonds are discovered.
“I believe there are many consumers that really treasure the opportunities to celebrate milestones with a forever gift, a gift that can be handed down from generation to generation. We certainly had some turbulent times recently in the gem and jewelry industry. And it was a confluence of a lot of geopolitical issues. The Russian-Ukraine War and the Israel Gaza Middle East war has impacted the marketplace. Israel is an important diamond center. Talk of recession and inflationary aspects definitely impact discretionary spend, and laboratory grown diamonds entered in a fairly big way. What happened, regrettably, is an over production, both in China and India, resulting in a significant decrease in the pricing of those stones relative to the rarity of natural. That has had a big impact in the marketplace.
“I believe the industry is bottomed out, and we do hope for some signs of good recovery in 2025,” said Jacques. “Hopefully with the election in America decided, people begin to feel a little less uncertain. But consumer confidence and consumer tastes have changed, and so the younger generations really are looking a little differently than my generation or former generations, at jewelry. The traceability and transparency is very, very important to them. So is the circular economy. Sustainability is very, very important for consumers and for our trade. Oysters actually clean and filter the water. And so there is a strong desire to not necessarily go for something new. With recycled, repurposed, or pre-loved jewelry, there is great opportunity. There’s been this evolution of how consumers buy.”
Jacques said GIA has become deeply involved in jewelry verification, specifically with eBay in the U.S., U.K. and Japan. “As eBay expands with consumer-to-consumer selling, people want to make sure they’re buying what they believe they’re buying.”
Art Deco represents one of the most important periods in jewelry, Jacques said. “The incredible creativity in design resulted in the necessity for new cuts of diamonds. Baguette cuts and half-moon cuts came into play because of the geometric designs of Art Deco jewelry. And Art Deco still commands very high prices at auctions and in the resale market.”
Also, when someone inherits a diamond ring, “They may treasure the significance of the center stone, but want a different setting, more reflective of their style,” Jacques noted. “There is a need for people that can repair jewelry, people that can actually take it back to a condition that you can wear it,” Jacques said, adding that developing such skills is a key part of GIA’s education program.
According to Jacques, the Karowe Mine has been the source of six out of the eight largest diamonds ever found. “It is a very unique source that produces these extraordinarily rare stones that are totally different than most general diamonds found.”
It’s quite possible that more large stones of the magnitude of the Lucara Diamond could be discovered at that mine, Jacques suggested. One reason is the X-ray recovery process introduced in 2015, which helps keep stones intact rather than getting smashed when mined. Further developed in 2017, the X-ray transmission process enables a mining company to examine rocks to see if there’s big crystal in it and segregate it from the general processing. In more conventional diamond mining, stones are being crushed continually to release as many diamonds as possible to maximize profitability for the mining company and the country where the diamond is discovered. The relatively new X-ray process, Jacques believes, is not widely used in diamond mines. “It was brought in by the Lucara Diamond Corp. because of the uniqueness of this particular mine and its very large crystals.”
Jacques believes that the Lucara Diamond is an intact crystal, rather than being part of another stone. “We have not examined the stone yet, but there are not specific cleavage planes. I would love the opportunity.” Spoken as a true gem geek.
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