In a hushed conference room in the heart of New York City, a city built on ambition and transformation, the titans of the global diamond industry gathered. It was June 11th, during the World Federation of Diamond Bourses (WFDB) presidents’ meeting, and the atmosphere was thick with a palpable mix of apprehension and defiant hope. The subject of the day, “The Future of the Diamond Industry,” wasn’t just another agenda item; it was an existential and authenticity question for a trade as old as kingdoms, a trade that has long symbolized permanence in a fleeting world. The panelists, leaders from bourses across the globe, weren’t there to offer simple platitudes. They were there to sound a clarion call: the world of natural diamonds stands at a precipice, and to survive, it must not just adapt, but profoundly reinvent itself.
“Change is no longer on the horizon; it is here, knocking on our doors,” declared Moshe Salem, the WFDB’s vice president and president of the Diamond Club West Coast. His tone was not one of defeat, but of urgent realism. He painted a picture of an industry at a pivotal junction. “The old ways, the comfortable certainties we have relied upon for generations, are fading. If you are ready to change, to pivot, to evolve, then the time is now. Grab a device, understand the digital language of our new customers, and learn how to use it to our advantage.”
Salem’s message was clear: the romance of the diamond is not dead, but the language used to express it must be reborn. “The natural business will come back, it will find its strength again,” he asserted, “but it will not, and cannot, be the same. We will continue to tell the timeless story of rarity, of a billion-year journey from the Earth’s mantle to a symbol of eternal love. But we will need to tell it in a different way, through different channels, with a voice that resonates with a world that communicates in pixels and posts.” The story must leap from the velvet-lined jeweler’s box and onto the glowing screens where modern life unfolds.
This sentiment was powerfully echoed by David Troostwyk, the president of the London Diamond Bourse, who offered a surprisingly optimistic vision rooted in the very technology that seems to threaten authenticity. “I am incredibly bullish on diamonds,” he stated, his confidence cutting through the room’s anxieties. His reasoning was a fascinating counter-narrative to the prevailing fear of the digital age. He sees the rise of Artificial Intelligence not as a threat, but as the ultimate catalyst for a return to the real.
“Think about the world we are rapidly entering,” Troostwyk elaborated, inviting the audience to imagine a near-future. “We will get to a point where artificial intelligence drafts our emails, writes our news articles, composes our music, and even generates our art. Everything is going to be artificial, seamless, and, ultimately, soulless.” He shared a personal, jarring anecdote that brought his point home. “I recently received an email from a dear friend. It was peppered with words like ‘furthermore’ and ‘henceforth.’ This is a man who has never spoken like that in his life. Why would he write that way? Almost certainly, he used an AI to draft it. The message felt hollow, less authentic. I felt so disconnected from it that I didn’t even answer.”
Extrapolating from this small, personal experience, Troostwyk painted a larger, more profound cultural landscape. “In this coming future, everything is going to look the same. Everyone is going to speak with the same AI-polished vocabulary, they will read the same synthesized information, and their houses, designed by algorithms, will look the same. A sea of perfect, predictable homogeneity.”
“And in that world,” he posed, his voice rising with conviction, “what will people truly crave? What will they ache for? They will want the unique, the flawed, the human. They will want handmade pieces, things crafted by a person with a story. They will want objects with a soul.” It is in this deeply human desire for the tangible and the true, he argued, that the natural diamond will find its most powerful resurgence. “A natural diamond, with its unique inclusions—its ‘fingerprints’ from nature—and its billion-year-old story, will become a talisman of authenticity. In my opinion, it will not just survive; it will make a triumphant comeback as a bastion of the real.”
While Troostwyk looked to the future of technology, Molefi Letsiki, chairman of the Diamond Dealers Club of South Africa, turned the focus to the future of humanity: the next generation. He delivered a stark warning that the industry has been losing its relevance with younger consumers.
“The current generation, the Millennials and Gen Z, often do not see the intrinsic value of buying diamonds in the way their parents did,” Letsiki explained. “This disconnect, this failure on our part to communicate our value, was the open door that made it so easy for them to embrace lab-grown diamonds. It wasn’t just about price; it was about a narrative that we failed to provide.”
His solution was proactive and forward-looking. “We can no longer afford to be reactive. We need to be speaking to the new generation, Generation Alpha, the children of today. The only way we can cultivate that appetite for what a natural diamond represents is to start speaking their language, and to start speaking to them now.”
This means a radical shift in marketing. Letsiki urged the trade to venture far beyond traditional print ads and showroom displays. “We must reach these younger people where they live, and they live on social media, in gaming worlds, and in virtual communities. Imagine a partnership with a major video game, where a quest involves finding a rare diamond. Imagine using augmented reality to let them ‘try on’ pieces from their phones. We have to embed our story into their culture, not wait for them to come to ours.”
Craig Miller, president of the Diamond Dealers Club of Australia, broadened this point, arguing that the industry’s entire communication strategy has been too insular. “For too long, we have been talking to each other,” he stated, a critique that resonated with many in the room. “We attend the same conferences, read the same trade journals, and we tend to repeat the same things over and over again in an echo chamber. But we are not the ones buying the final product. We need to turn our focus outward and talk directly to the consumer. Because they are the ones making the final decision, they are the ones spending their hard-earned money, and they are the ones who need to be inspired.”
This need for new energy and new voices led the conversation to a critical internal initiative: attracting young talent. The panelists unanimously pointed to the formation of the Young Diamantaires group as a pivotal step in the right direction.
“The idea for Young Diamantaires was born from a desire for a new kind of conversation,” explained Troostwyk, a key figure in its development. “People in our industry under the age of 45 wanted a space where they could get together, ask the tough questions, freely give their opinions, and genuinely challenge the status quo without fear of reprisal.”
This was a radical departure from the old guard’s culture. “That open dialogue creates relationships, and relationships are the fundamental bedrock of our industry,” Troostwyk continued. “It has brought us all together to be stronger, to see the bigger picture. If we look back in time, we all used to compete against each other fiercely, often in isolation. And of course, we do still compete. But today, the idea of seeing each other solely as competitors is harming us more than it’s helping us. The world has changed. We face collective challenges, and we need collective solutions.”
Letsiki added a crucial dimension to the group’s impact. “Typically, industry groups would be siloed. It would just be diamond dealers in one room, manufacturers in another,” he said. “The Young Diamantaires broke down those walls. It brought everyone in the industry—whether they are in retail, in polishing, or upstream on the mining side—together to share their unique perspectives. It brings people together not just to do business, but to build genuine relationships, to build a true community.”
He paused, then added a point that perfectly captured the modern zeitgeist. “It’s become about more than business; it’s beyond that. It’s about the collective difference you want to make together. And that vision speaks directly to the young generation today. They don’t just want a job; they want a purpose. They want to know: What difference am I making in the world?”
This nurturing of the next generation, Salem concluded, is the ultimate responsibility of the current leadership. “Grooming the next generation is a hallmark of true leadership,” he said with gravitas. “You need to invite young people in, appoint them to different roles, and give them the space to make small mistakes. You guide them, you correct them where needed, and you let them feel comfortable enough to grow and to lead. That is how we ensure a future.”
As the session drew to a close, the panelists were asked a final, personal question: What does the diamond industry mean to you? Their answers, stripped of business jargon, revealed the deep, emotional core that sustains them.
“For me, it’s passion,” said Miller. “A deep passion for what I do, through the good times and the bad. A diamond is a miracle of nature, and at the end of the day, I love that I am part of a trade that makes people happy.”
Letsiki spoke of connection and legacy. “Selling a diamond enables me to be part of the most special moments in people’s lives—an engagement, an anniversary, a birth. But it’s also more personal. I myself am a testament to the idea that diamonds do good. My entire education was paid for by money from someone who was paid to polish diamonds. All of my life experiences have been paid for by this industry. I have seen, with my own eyes, the profound difference they’ve made in people’s lives and communities.”
Troostwyk celebrated the industry’s vibrant, human tapestry. “What I love is that it’s one single product that touches so many different industries and people,” he said. “You have mining, geology, manufacturing, technology, high finance, art, and retail. I am a sociable person. To be in an environment where I can meet and interact with so many fascinating people from all over the world every single day… I feel very lucky.”
Finally, Moshe Salem brought the discussion full circle, anchoring the industry’s future in its most essential, timeless value. “Integrity,” he said simply. “In this business, your word is everything. If you have spine and you have principle, you can always walk tall. In a world of constant change, our integrity is our anchor.”
And with that, the session ended, leaving the audience with a clear, challenging, yet hopeful vision. The path forward for the natural diamond is not a simple return to a glorious past, but a bold journey into an uncertain future—a future where its success will be measured not just in carats and clarity, but in its ability to connect, to inspire, and to stand as a symbol of authentic, enduring human value in an increasingly artificial world.
