Setting a Precedent, DTC’s MD Shine Visits New York

Varda Shine’s January visit to New York for an International Women’s Health Coalition gala marked the first time in 50 years that a key Diamond Trading Company (DTC) executive has visited the U.S. The managing director of the DTC was in the city along with Rosalind Kainyah and Jonathan Oppenheimer’s wife, Jennifer, to speak at the De Beers Group-sponsored event.  

DTC MD Varda Shine (l) speaking at the IWHC gala. Washington, DC office head Rosalind Kainyah on right. Photo courtesy IWHC

Shine’s appearance reflects a change in De Beers’ legal status in the U.S. following a court case decades ago which rendered its senior personnel persona non grata in the U.S.

Each year, IWHC selects individuals who demonstrate an exceptional commitment to promote and protect the health and human rights of women and girls around the world. This year’s sixth annual gala was attended by close to 500 people and raised more than $1 million.

“Women are the backbone of …communities and for this reason De Beers has committed $1.5 million over the next three years to a community-based HIV/AIDS program, specifically targeting women in southern Africa, where the women are likely to be between six and eight times more likely to be infected than men,” Shine said at the event.

The company has a comprehensive prevention, treatment, care, and support, program that includes free antiretroviral treatment for all HIV positive employees and their families, according to Shine. “We are now extending [the program] into the communities where our mines are,” she said.

Rosalind Kainyah, head of De Beers’s new office in Washington, DC said at the event, “I hope that our support of IWHC would encourage and inspire other companies to do the same. At De Beers we call this `living up to diamonds’.”

With the exception of Rory More O’Ferrall, De Beers’ retiring Director External Affairs, company directors and managers have not traveled to the U.S. for the past 50 years. Last October, De Beers opened its first official office in Washington, DC. The office does mostly PR work relating to the international diamond trade.