Interview with GIA’s Susan Jacques

The Jewelry District

JCK

Fashion & Beauty, Business News, Business, Arts, News

9.9 • 25 Ratings

🗓️ 14 May 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On The Jewelry District’s second video podcast, JCK editor-in-chief Victoria Gomelsky and news director Rob Bates interview Susan Jacques, outgoing president and CEO of GIA. Susan recounts her fascinating journey from growing up in Africa to a life-changing GIA course to an unlikely move to Omaha, where she helmed Borsheims and reported to Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett. She even spent a day behind the counter with the billionaire investor. Susan also discusses GIA’s mission, her decision to retire, what the industry must do to avoid a crisis of consumer confidence in diamonds, and the upcoming AGS/GIA Converge conference.Watch here: https://youtube.com/watch?v=MGxfPtfKj_I

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey everyone, welcome to a special edition of the Jewelry District.
0:14.0	I'm Victoria Gimelski, editor-in-chief of JCPay and JCP online.com, here at One World Trade Center at our wonderful recording studio. And I'm with... Rob Bates, news director of JCPa Online.com here at One World Trade Center at our wonderful recording studio.
0:22.1	And I'm with Rob Bates, news director of JCPay and JCPonline.com.
0:28.1	Also at this wonderful, kind of cramped, but very cozy.
0:34.3	We'll say cozy recording studio at One World Trade Center. We're elbow to elbow
0:39.6	quite literally.
0:40.4	Yes, it's very exciting. This is our second video podcast. So. And we're absolutely thrilled
0:48.3	to have a woman that I've admired for many, many years since I met her. And I imagine it was
0:53.5	about the year you joined
0:55.2	GIA, of course, that hasn't given it away already. It's Susan Jacques, president and CEO
1:00.4	of the Gemological Institute of America based in Carlsbad, joined in 2013. So this would mark
1:07.8	almost, what, 12 years now. Going on my 12th year? Very exciting.
1:11.6	Thank you for joining us. We're here in New York. It's a busy week. You arrived,
1:16.6	let's see, we're taping on a Thursday. You said you arrived on Tuesday?
1:19.6	Tuesday night. Came in. Easy flight from San Diego nonstop.
1:23.6	How many of these have you done now, these jewelry weeks that happened? Well, and they used to be, of course, in January, now they're in March.
1:29.3	Does this feel like just your year must be marked by these kinds of events, right?
1:34.3	There are many events throughout the year.
1:36.3	I have been coming to this event for decades.
1:40.3	When you were at Borschimes, of course.
1:42.3	First at Borsheims and now with GIA.
1:45.0	So it's great.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from JCK, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of JCK and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.