THE ILLUSION OF SIMPLICITY:
SEEING THE FOREST AND THE TREES
‘
We would never ask a retailer to predict the manufacturing yield from a parcel of rough, yet within the KP we seem comfortable allowing those without direct diamond trade experience to define how rough should be controlled, valued and traded.
A former president of the London Diamond Bourse, at whose head he served from 2018 through 2024, Alan Cohen is a member of the World Diamond Council’s Board of Directors and also of its Kimberley Process Task Force.
South African-born, he left the country as a young diamantaire, settling in London and becoming part of United Kingdom’s diamond sector. When the Russian diamond industry opened to the international trade in 1990, he relocated to Moscow, where he lived and worked for 16 years.
After returning to London he became active in the public life of the industry, first at the London Diamond Bourse, and later at the World Federation of Diamond Bourses and the World Diamond Council.
MAY 4, 2026
One of the things that first drew me to the World Diamond Council was its structure.
It recognizes a simple reality that most in this industry understand – there is no single “diamond business.” There are sectors. They are distinct, specialized, and often operating with very different perspectives and priorities around the same product. Mining, manufacturing, wholesale, retail, each come with their own economic principles, their own pressures, and, most importantly, their own expertise.
The WDC board reflects that and not accidentally. It is built on the understanding that no one voice can credibly speak for the entire pipeline.
Of course, there are those who straddle more than one area, typically in the wholesale space, where rough and polished trading intersect with elements of manufacturing, and vice versa. But even there, the overlap is limited. It is not a true blending of sectors. Wholesale trading is not the same as running a mine, nor is it the same as building a retail brand at scale.
“Even within individual trading centers, firms may appear to be doing the same thing, but yet each specializes in a different product type, be it related to size, quality or the type of market being targeted,” writes Alan Cohen. (Photo, for illustrative purposes, by Efe Burak Baydar on Pexels.com)
Highly specialized and coordinated
True cross-sector expertise is rare.Even within individual trading centers, firms may appear to be doing the same thing, but yet each specializes in a different product type, be it related to size, quality or the type of market being targeted.
And that is exactly the point.
The industry works because of its segmentation, not despite it. Which is why the current direction in we seem to be traveling gives me pause.
Extraction is capital intensive and politically complex.
Manufacturing is largely dominated by Indian companies who have transformed the sector through scale, efficiency, and relentless application.
Wholesale remains relationship-driven and experience-led, although increasingly influenced by the manufacturers who have moved into that space. Much of the overlap between sectors sits within this wholesale layer.
Retail operates closest to the consumer, shaped by branding, marketing, and pricing pressures, with both global-scale players and successful independents.
The industry is not becoming more unified, even as it becomes more specialized. And the WDC works because it structurally reflects and accounts for the specialization within the sectors.
When policies are created out of one’s comfort zone
But the Kimberley Process has been less adaptive. In its early stages, the KP was shaped by the fact that the bulk of its input came from those directly involved in the trade, with guidance from governments.
But over the course of time, policy increasingly came to be formulated by people without direct exposure to the practical mechanics of the trade, although producing countries continued to bring authoritative, first-hand expertise in both the extraction and economic spheres.
It is important to remember that the KP was built for parcels, not individual stones.
Rough is bought in parcels. Valuations rely on averages, experience, and price books. A manufacturer may analyze every individual stone later, but at the buying stage they are pricing a mix, not a fantasy of traceable diamonds.
The push toward stone-by-stone traceability requires a data-heavy solution that currently is disconnected from trade reality. And it’s not because of resistance in the trade to knowing where diamonds come from, but rather a rejection of unworkable methods for proving it. What methods exist tell us little about true provenance, while subtly undermining the foundations of the KP.
We would never ask a retailer to predict the manufacturing yield from a parcel of rough, yet within the KP we seem comfortable allowing those without direct diamond trade experience to define how rough should be controlled, valued and traded.
Knowledge in this industry is not general. It is specific, earned, and contextual. This is not about resisting change, but demanding that any proposed change meets reality on the ground. The risk is not that we fail to modernize, but that modernization is undertaken without fully understanding the system and listening to the wrong people.
Making policy without expertise is a recipe for creating a broken system.