De Beers Hires New Auctions Exec

RAPAPORT... De Beers has appointed Alastair Bickerstaff as head ofproduct development and sales for its auctions division. The company created the new role to bring the two elementsof the auctions business together so it could better address its customers'needs, it said last week.Bickerstaff, who began working with De Beers in 2005 as a London-basedtrainee rough-diamond valuer, held a variety of positions before joining theauctions division in 2016. He was most recently head of production inSingapore. "The time spent with polishing-factory managers has given megreat learnings and insight into the importance of building rough-diamondproducts which are relevant and reactive to our customer's needs," Bickerstaffexplained. "This isn't necessarily an easy task to achieve on the scale that wesell and the size of our customer base, however, we have a few new solutions tohelp us, which we will be rolling out soon." Bickerstaff will lead a 12-person sales team, as well as theproduct development and supply teams, in an effort to market the group'sproducts in a more targeted way, and to improve the company's responsiveness tocustomer feedback, De Beers noted. "Digital transformation is underway in many industries tofurther enhance sales models, build stronger connections with customers andoptimize production. [We] see this as a great opportunity," said James Kirby, DeBeers' senior vice president of auctions. "Together with Alastair's extensiveproduct knowledge, customers can expect us to introduce more product- andservice-oriented solutions in the very near future where we put technology togreat use to better address their needs quicker than before." Image: Alastair Bickerstaff. (De Beers)