Sotheby’s names Stewart Young head of Asia jewelry department in Hong Kong

Sotheby’s has handed its Asia jewelry business to Stewart Young, a Hong Kong-based appointment that signals how central the city remains to diamond-jewelry demand and price discovery across the region. Young became senior director and head of the Asia jewelry department on April 27, succeeding Regine Ngan and taking charge of both auctions and private sales, while also working with Sotheby’s Salon team on the retail side.

The move matters because Sotheby’s is not treating Asia as a side market. In January 2022, the house reorganized its regional luxury leadership and said Asian collectors represented more than 40 percent of global watch auction sales and 52 percent of global jewelry auction sales in 2021. Those numbers explain why Hong Kong leadership carries weight: the city is still the gate through which regional wealth enters the market, and the executive in that seat helps shape what gets offered, where it is sold and how aggressively it is priced.

Young arrives with direct auction-house experience in the same market. Before Sotheby’s, he led Bonhams’ jewelry department in Asia in Hong Kong, where Bonhams said he oversaw two live sales and six online sales each year. That background suggests Sotheby’s is hiring for a business that now lives in two formats at once, the theater of live auctions and the quieter, highly tailored world of private sales. The addition of the Salon team to his remit makes the strategy even clearer: Asia luxury is no longer divided neatly between the auction room and the showroom.

The categories Sotheby’s is likely to lean on are already visible in Hong Kong. The house has lined up a High Jewelry sale there this April featuring Cartier, Bulgari and Van Cleef & Arpels, alongside Kashmir sapphires, Colombian emeralds, rubies from Burma and a 28.88-carat De Beers Jwaneng diamond. That roster tells its own story. Sotheby’s is not chasing breadth so much as depth, the kind of rare, name-brand and origin-rich pieces that can draw serious bidders from across Asia and beyond.

For collectors, the appointment hints at a market where important jewels may once again command stronger Asia-driven competition, especially in signed pieces, top-color stones and large diamonds with clean provenance. For the trade, it suggests Sotheby’s sees Hong Kong as more than a sale location: it is a pricing engine, a clienteling hub and, increasingly, a place where private buying and public bidding are part of the same luxury conversation.