This year’s honorees include a Midwest retailer and two multi-store independents, one in New York and the other in New England.
Diamond Miners’ Group Hires Managing Director for N. America
Kristina Buckley Kayel joins the Diamond Producers Association after nearly 11 years at Van Cleef & Arpels.

New York—The Diamond Producers Association now has a managing director for North America, naming former Van Cleef communications executive Kristina Buckley Kayel to the role.
Managing director is a new position for the DPA in North America.
The organization previously had a chief marketing officer, Deborah Marquardt, but she left in September after two years with the organization, as JCKOnline.com reported. The DPA declined to comment on the reason for Marquardt’s departure.
Buckley Kayel joins Sarah Gorvitz, strategic communications and insights lead, Brooke Goodwin-Fullerton, strategic partnerships lead, and U.S. trade lead Grant Mobley on the DPA’s team in North America.
In a news release, the organization said that Buckley Kayel’s “unique background and extensive experience in strategic marketing, communications and digital leadership roles well position [her] to spearhead the DPA’s mission to restore, protect and promote the integrity and reputation of natural diamonds, especially among the younger U.S. consumer base.”
For the past decade, Buckley Kayel worked as the vice president of communications, the Americas for Richemont-owned jewelry brand Van Cleef & Arpels. There, her oversight included media, digital, public relations and educational platforms.
Prior to that, she spent three months consulting with Bottega Veneta while finishing her MBA at SDA Bocconi, three years as the marketing director at Salvatore Ferragamo and about three years handling marketing and public relations at crystal company Baccarat.
Buckley Kayel will be based in the DPA office in Midtown Manhattan and report to DPA CEO Jean-Marc Lieberherr.
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