The New Generation is a WDC newsletter series that tells the stories of up-and-coming diamond industry leaders, examining the role that they see for themselves, in the business and the diamond itself. Each article in the series is delivered in the person’s own voice.
The tenth article in the series features Rhea Dcunha, Business Transformation and Strategy Lead at the M.Tarun Group, an international diamond trading and manufacturing corporation headquartered in Mumbai.
FROM TWO WORLDS, AND BUILDING OUR OWN
The author, Rhea Dcunha, Business Transformation and Strategy Lead at M.Tarun Group, with Pratik Kalaria, the company’s Global President.
NOVEMBER 28, 2025
As a child, I never imagined a life inside the diamond industry. Although born and raised in Mumbai, I grew up in a Christian household originally from South India. It was a nuclear family in which both my parents worked. Stability meant a secure job, a steady income and a life rooted in discipline, education and routine. Entrepreneurship wasn’t something we discussed or even considered.
We were the kind of family whose members took to their jobs like a fish takes to water. We were people who studied hard, worked harder and built their lives through consistency. Academics weren’t just encouraged, they were expected.
Finding my first job, planning my higher education and navigating opportunities were decisions I learnt to make on my own. I began at KPMG in risk consulting, then moved to PwC, and afterwards to Deutsche Bank. Over the years, I worked on regulatory projects, change-management assignments, internal audits and global financial reforms.
I learnt how international companies think, and how systems and emerging markets move. I came to understand how risk must be addressed long before it becomes visible. My world was one of structure, documentation and governance – a place where everything had a process, a logic and an explanation. It is why diamonds, the craft of manufacturing them and their legacy felt so far from anything I knew.
Even as I approached marriage, to one who had been raised within the diamond industry, I assumed my life would continue along the same rational corporate lines. A family business did not feel like my natural place.
From a career in global risk consulting to becoming a new voice in a legacy industry was a journey undertaken by the author Rhea Dcunha.
And yet, something in me was curious about the world my new family had spent decades building. I was inquisitive about the conversations that filled their dinner table over the many years I had known them. I was interested in the intensity with which they spoke about work, craft and people.
It was a quiet tug urging me to understand a world I had never been exposed to and to understand where I was going. I had to fathom where this family had come from.
Building a company from the ground up
My father-in-law and his brother began their journey the way many first-generation diamantaires did, with nothing but need, grit and an unshakeable will. There were no safety nets, just two teenagers taking up whatever jobs they could find in diamond workshops.
From those uncertain beginnings, they built M. Tarun Diamonds 35 years ago, in a single room, with two employees and a determination far bigger than their circumstances.
The values that shaped them shaped the company – precision-cutting discipline and a pursuit of excellence where nothing left the factory unless it was perfect.
Behind that perfection was a culture more powerful than the product. It was a teaching-first mindset, with an open door approach at every level, and a deep commitment to the employees whose families grew up with the business.
This was the DNA of the place I walked into.
Learning the people before the process
When I first stepped into the business, I didn’t know where to begin. There were no manuals for someone like me. So, I did the only thing I knew how to do well, I gathered data.
Because I couldn’t make sense of it in pieces, I built one giant Excel sheet, marking capabilities, timelines, QC loops, output by department, skill distribution, digital presence, technology and even competitor benchmarking. It became my map for a world I barely knew.
In those early weeks, I sat in every department simply to learn. I watched stones move from one pair of skilled hands to another and realized what perfection truly is. The first time I walked into the factory, I expected noise and machinery. I found something else entirely – quiet precision, deep focus and decades of stories in motion.
People here were the foundation on which the company was built. To understand them better, I organized a blood donation camp and began gathering details. It was a way to understand who they were, where they lived, what they needed, and how they saw the company.
Speaking to every team member, some of whom didn’t even know their blood group, opened an unexpected window into their lives. Those conversations grounded me. They reminded me that behind every diamond is a human being, balancing hope, skill, family and survival.
It was the first of many initiatives to understand the workforce and the ecosystem that supports them.
My better half
To understand Pratik, my husband, who is now at helm of M. Tarun Diamonds, is to understand the duality of destiny.
He grew up with cricket bats and football studs. Sport was the world he loved. He trained as a soccer player in Mumbai, then in Boston, Barcelona and Portugal. His identity was that of an athlete. It was his language and his future.
But life has a way of rewriting stories. And his was rewritten one injury at a time.
He returned home to India after a major groin injury, emotionally torn and unsure what to do. His father suggested that he spend six months in the factory, learning everything first-hand, before deciding his future.
It was a path he resisted and he had his reasons. But those six months changed everything. He spent time with people who had worked with the company since the beginning – craftsmen whose lives were shaped by M. Tarun Diamonds. They weren’t telling him about legacy; they were the legacy.
He decided that if he was entering this world, he would do it with purpose. He honored what his father and uncle built while bringing in the future it needed. He revamped its identity, created a new website and introduced blockchain technology and digital structures in spaces where they did not exist.
Pratik Kalaria, soon after his retrun to India. Joining the family business on a six-month trial basis, he learned the craft from the experienced hands on the factory floor.
He trained our staff one-on-one. He built relationships with teams who struggled to adjust to his new ways.
And slowly, the lessons he learnt from sport – resilience, teamwork and discipline began reshaping the business and paving the way for me as well.
Finding my own footing
I knew manufacturing wasn’t my lane. But structure, governance, compliance and communication were areas where I could create value.
So I began tightening systems, documenting processes and building policies the company had never formally put in place. I developed frameworks, created our first sustainability report and slowly began shaping the company’s internal and external narrative. As the work grew, my role evolved from supporting a family-run setup to helping it transition into a modern, globally connected organization.
That journey opened doors to the World Diamond Council, Original Luxury, the Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC) and the Watch & Jewellery Initiative. These were spaces that widened my perspective and deepened my responsibility.
The way I see it, I am a rarity in this place. A young South Indian Christian woman in a Gujarati, male-dominated manufacturing ecosystem. But I’ve come to see that difference as one of perspective, and not a limitation.
That’s what keeps the room open for learning about the craft, business and the people who built this industry long before I joined it. Meeting leaders across geographies has shown me how challenges differ but fundamentals remain the same.
And one of the quiet strengths I’ve observed over the years is the role of the women in Pratik’s family. They held everything together while the men built the business. It’s the kind of support that never appears in balance sheets but is reflected in everything that grows above it. That balance, that sacrifice, that unity is also part of the legacy.
The author flanked by volunteers from M.Tarun and the Ray of Joy Foundation, during a beach clean-up at Girgaon Chowpatty, Mumbai.
What diamonds taught me about resilience
Stepping into this industry has been an exercise in unlearning and relearning. It demanded a new mindset, a new vocabulary and a new kind of presence.
Being present at global forums wasn’t about visibility, it was about gaining understanding. Every interaction deepened my resolve to learn this industry from the ground up. I’ve become a sponge – absorbing, observing, forming my own opinions and learning from people who built this ecosystem.
This industry teaches you beautifully through what it does not say directly. It teaches you to show up, especially on the days you doubt yourself. If sport taught Pratik discipline, diamonds taught me endurance. Resilience became a muscle quietly strengthened over time.
Let’s just say I’ve travelled a long distance from the teenager who wanted a diamond for its princess-like feeling, to the woman who knows every polished stone carries the weight of many hands and the hope of many families.
The way forward
Pratik and I may be newly married, but together we’ve stepped into a legacy that’s still unfolding, and that is the most exciting part.
If I had to describe us, it would be as yin and yang. He is instinctive, creative, fearless, and the one who dreams in leaps. I am analytical, deliberate, people-focused, and the one who builds in layers. We complement each other, and together the business moves in balance.
We preserve what built this house but we’re also shaping what its next chapter must become – tech-led systems, sustainability at the center, transparent processes, modern governance and teams that feel empowered and not managed.
I didn’t dream of this world, but I am building my place in it – one decision, one value-creating conversation at a time.
Because like they say, diamonds don’t just shine. They teach you how to.