Welcome to the Jewelry District, a podcast by J.C.K. brought to you by Jewelers Mutual.

Today, Rob Bates and Victoria Gamalski talk about David Kelly and the Natural Diamond Council,

High Jewelry in Paris, and Rob's latest book.

Hey, everyone.

Welcome to the Jewelry District.

This is Victoria Gamelski, editor-in-chief of JCP and JCP-CK Online.com, calling in from Los Angeles, and I'm with. Rob Bates, news director of J-C-K and J-C-Online.com, calling in from New York City. Hi, again. We've talked a couple of times this week. We're recording this pretty early, at least in relation to when it's coming out,

when you guys are listening to this, it's end of July. And we are going to be a blast from the past

because it's July 11th today. So due to travels and general, you know, summer holiday situations,

are you going anywhere? Or do you, are you, do you reserve your holiday for like the right before labor day as yeah i usually

be the right before labor day so uh as far as i know we're not going anywhere we'll have to see

we're selling my uh family home so i'm kind of dealing with that but uh otherwise yeah is that emotional

pack up everything uh it is it's very weird you know I grew up in that house and then my father lived there and I never really kind of went there because he always would visit me in New York. And then he moved him with his girlfriend. And then during COVID, we all lived there for about five months. So in addition to the kind of old memories, it had kind of new memories. I mean, at first it was weird.

I mean, I was like being hit by like, you know, all these childhood memories, you know, like it's literally the house I grew up in from like three years old. Yeah. I mean, I feel like it is a right of passage to pack up your family home and watch your parents sell it. And, you know, I'm also in my, the house that I, one of the,

I lived in a lot of houses as a kid, but the one that is very much home is the one my mom still lives in. And, you know, it's the one we've been staying in since we've been renovating our own home since March. And we're about to literally move back in, like, hopefully next week. But I, I know what you mean about making new memories, you know, now,

especially that we both have kids and watching our kids run around the house that we grew up in. I mean, that's special, you know. Not not everybody has that opportunity. Wow. Well, cool. Well, good luck with all that. It's a big thing to do. But once you're done, it must, it'll feel good. Well, let's, let's segue into the news at hand.

There was some big news. big to do, but once you're done, it must, it'll feel good. Well, let's, let's segue into the,

the news at hand. There was some big news this week in the natural diamond world. Do you want to

tell us about it? Yeah. So, David Kelly, who's been the CEO of the Natural Diamond Council for,

I think about five or six years. He just said he's going to step down at the end of the year.

He wants to retire, which is interesting because he's actually younger than me. So now they're

looking for a new leader. And that's a, I mean, that's a very important position. If you think about

all the issues with natural diamonds and, you know, everybody agrees that there needs to be

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