(PRESS RELEASE) MILAN, ITALY — CIBJO’s popular Jewellery Industry Voices webinar and seminar series will kick off its fourth season in the same venue where it concluded its third, at the VICENZAORO show in Vicenza, Italy. On Sunday, January 22, 2022, it will conduct two hybrid seminars – in person and simultaneously live streamed – in the Palladio Theatre at the Vicenza exposition centre. The event, which is hosted by the Italian Exhibition Group, is being co-organized with New York-based Initiatives in Arts and Culture.
The first seminar/webinar will take place 10:00 AM-11:00 AM Central European Time. Entitled “The branding of the jewelry market,” it will look at the growing dominance of brands, which today account for more than half of fine jewelry sales, focusing on how the brands are promoting responsible sourcing and sustainability principles to enhance their own identity, as well as the value of their products.
The first seminar’s panelists include Esther Oberbeck, Senior Vice President of Group Strategy Development and Strategy Analytics at the De Beers Group, which at the end of 2022 released a report that highlighted the growing role of brands and virtue marketing as dominant trends; Lita Asscher, Co-CEO of Royal Asscher Company, a leading diamond brand; Iris Van der Veken, Executive Director of Watch & Jewellery Initiative 2030, the new industry group founded by Kering and Cartier, which is working to create a fully sustainable industry that is resilient to climate change, preserves resources and fosters inclusiveness; and Luca Buccellati, CEO of Buccellati Holding SPA, the prestigious Milan-headquartered jewelry maison, which like Cartier is part of the Richemont Group. The moderator will be Edward Johnson.
The second seminar will take place 11:15 AM-12:15 PM Central European Time. It is entitled “Sustainability through successful succession,” and will tackle the the process of transitioning effectively from one generation to the next. In an industry that is characterized by family-owned companies, the long-term sustainability of a jewelry firm or brand is reliant on the transfer of knowledge, skills, trade secrets and often historic inventory from one generation to another, even when the company or brand moves from a family-owned to a more corporate structure.
The second seminar’s panelists include Alice Cicolini, a London-based designer whose jewelry has employed some of the Persian traditions and skills of enamel artisans today active in Jaipur, India, which have been passed down through generations of families for more than 200 years; Vincenzo Liverino, owner of a family-owned coral company in Torre del Greco, near Naples, who has committed to preserving the historic legacy of his family and town in the coral business, including the creation of one of the world’s historic jewelry collections and the opening of a museum; Sarah Fabergé, head of the Heritage Council and Director of Special Projects at Fabergé; and Alice Vanni, a director and the Sustainability and Compliance Manager at Italpreziosi Spa, a precious metals refinery in Arezzo, Italy, long associated with her family. The moderator will be Lisa Koenigsberg, President of Initiatives in Arts and Culture.
To view the webinars online, viewers will be able to link directly to the live feed on January 22, 2023, via the VICENZAORO website: here, starting at 10:00 AM Central European Time.