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GIA Names New President and CEO Pritesh Patel, the lab’s chief operating officer, will take over as president and CEO of GIA.
SourcingAug 30, 2016
Lorenzo Yih, Founding Sponsor of GIA Hong Kong, Dies at 77
Yih was chairman and CEO of the Lorenzo Jewelry Group, with more than 30 years of experience in the industry.
New York--Lorenzo Yih, the chairman and CEO of the Lorenzo Jewelry Group, died earlier this month. He was 77.
Born June 5, 1939 in China, Yih was raised in Brazil.
There, he first worked as an architect on projects ranging from the residence of the president to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building.
Yih went on to work as a colored gemstone trader, founding a manufacturing company in the 1980s before establishing Lorenzo Jewelry Ltd. in Hong Kong in 1987. The company became a major global supplier and was listed on the NASDAQ exchange in 1998.
In 2004, Yih launched a retail jewelry brand in China, called Enzo. Enzo’s first shop opened in Shanghai and spread to several wholly owned locations across China.
In 2014, Yih created a gem mining division, called GMP, which completed his vertically integrated, “mine to market” business model.
Yih established GIA Hong Kong in 1994 and was the founding sponsor from 1994 to 2002. In 2000, Yih was inducted into GIA’s League of Honors.
Yih also was an active member of the International Colored Gemstone Association (ICA), which he joined in the early ‘90s.
A statement released this week regarding Yih’s death included this quote from former ICA President Wilson Yuen, who said, “During our 2009 Panyu (China) Congress and 2011 Brazil Congress, Lorenzo had contributed greatly, supporting those ICA events, and also promoting ICA and colored gemstones throughout China.”
Yih died on Aug. 5.
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