Feriel Zerouki has been appointed as the new President of the World Diamond Council (WDC) after three years as Vice President “and almost two decades as a leading advocate for enhancing standards and driving progress within the diamond industry,” according to a press release by the WDC. Zerouki, who was born in the United Arab Emirates, took over from Edward Asscher.
Zerouki began her career in the diamond industry in 2005 as a supply chain analyst at De Beers’ Diamond Trading Company. She was appointed Best Practices Principles Manager at De Beers in 2009. In 2014, she was appointed Head of International Relations at De Beers. She helped Tracr (a blockchain-based platform developed for the diamond industry by De Beers and Everledger), and “GemFair, created to support the formalization of the artisanal diamond mining sector, through which miners receive fair value offers for their diamonds.” More recently, Zerouki was appointed Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs at De Beers Group.
In a statement, Zerouki said: “We all – Participants and Observers – have a vested interest in the success of the KP and the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, and in ensuring that they are provided the scope and the means to protect the diamond distribution chain moving forward. The current KP Review and Reform cycle, in which WDC is deeply involved, is of critical importance, for it addresses directly what needs to be done to position the KP effectively in a much-changed and fast-evolving landscape.”
