Ronnie VanderLinden takes helm at World Diamond Council, urges unified natural diamond message

Ronnie VanderLinden has taken the top job at the World Diamond Council with a blunt mandate: make the case for natural diamonds, and make it consistently. At the council’s annual general meeting in Antwerp, Belgium, on May 7, he succeeded Feriel Zerouki and said the trade needs to “speak with one voice” as weaker demand, sharper competition and fractured messaging put pressure on the market.

The leadership shift matters because the World Diamond Council is the diamond and jewelry industry’s official representative within the Kimberley Process, the UN-backed system created in 2000 in Kimberley, South Africa, to stop conflict diamonds from entering the trade. Its Kimberley Process Certification Scheme began in 2003, and the council’s System of Warranties, launched in 2002, was designed to extend conflict-free assurances beyond rough stones to polished diamonds and jewelry. VanderLinden’s new role puts him at the center of those policy arguments just as the trade is fighting to defend natural diamonds on provenance, consumer confidence and differentiation.

Zerouki, who had led the council since May 15, 2023, was named honorary president as VanderLinden took over. She was the first woman to head the organization, and the council credited her tenure with forcing the industry to confront the conflict-diamond definition debate while re-centering producing countries in the diamond story. That legacy leaves VanderLinden with a clear political brief as much as a commercial one: explain not only where diamonds come from, but how they move through the pipeline and how the trade supports producing nations.

VanderLinden arrives with deep trade credentials. He is president of Diamex Inc., a New York-based diamond manufacturer and wholesaler, and also serves as president of the International Diamond Manufacturers Association and the U.S. Jewelry Council. The council also confirmed his broader leadership role inside the organization, a sign that the handoff was meant to sharpen, not dilute, its message.

The timing is no accident. VanderLinden steps in as the industry faces softer demand and the continuing rise of lab-grown diamonds, while the Kimberley Process Intersessional Meeting is set for May 11 to 14 in Mumbai, India. India is chairing the process in 2026 under a framework built around Confidence, Compliance and Credibility. For natural diamonds, the next phase of the fight will not be about sentiment. It will be about trust, traceability and whether the trade can still tell a story the market believes.