How I Got Here: Pooja Duggal Turns Her Rapaport Know-How to Escape Privé

By Karen Dybis | October 06, 2026

The Dubai-based fine jewelry company Escape Privé is Pooja Duggal’s first foray into owning something of her own. She describes herself a first-generation entrepreneur in this industry—there was no jewelry company for her to inherit or family diamond business to fall back on. This has to work, or she goes back to work.

“My advantage has always been knowledge—and an enormous curiosity about this industry. Escape Privé is where that knowledge has finally become personal,” Duggal says. “I want to build fine jewelry that feels intelligent but never intimidating; beautifully made but actually worn; luxurious without being dictated by an old definition of luxury.”

Duggal spent 13 years at Rapaport Group, where she served as managing director in India. The GIA-certified gemologist also worked across the diamond hubs of India, Israel, Belgium, Hong Kong, Dubai, and New York. Over the course of her career, she says she has inspected more than 2 million diamonds, giving her a unique perspective on what constitutes beauty, quality, and value.

Duggal jewelry — *Escape Privé specializes in lab-grown diamonds like in this signature tennis necklace ($18,512) with 60.55 cts. t.w. brilliant cut lab-grown diamonds in 18k gold.*

That all comes through in her debut of Escape Privé, which she introduced in February 2025. Her jewelry philosophy is based on what she calls Intelligent Luxury, using lab-grown diamonds and creating pieces centered on craftsmanship and personalization.

Duggal was born and raised in Mumbai, and her first jewelry memories were of her mother, who was an avid diamond collector. Her mom bought directly from wholesalers and worked with artisans at the bench to create her pieces.

“There was so much trust involved in buying diamonds then. Certification existed, of course, but many transactions were still based on relationships and on what a wholesaler told you that you were buying,” Duggal says. “My mother wanted to understand more for herself, so one summer, when I was 15 and off from school, she decided to take a diamond course in Mumbai’s Opera House district.… She asked if I wanted to take the course with her. I was a curious 15 year old who followed my mother everywhere, so I thought, Why not? That decision quite literally changed my life.”

Duggal then talked her way into an internship at a Mumbai jewelry factory, where she learned the business from the inside. By 17, she had designed her first diamond necklace, which her mother had made for her to wear. Today, Duggal’s 7-year-old daughter has inherited it as her own.

“There is something magical about that for me. A piece that began with my mother, was imagined by me as a teenager and was made by hand at a jeweler’s bench, is now with my daughter,” Duggal says. “Hopefully, one day she will pass it on again. You cannot really put a monetary value on that kind of jewelry. Its value is in its story.”

Duggal rings — *The brand also uses colored lab-grown diamonds. Its Dream Ring ($10,530) features a 10.03 ct. radiant-cut fancy vivid yellow lab-grown diamond in 14k white gold.*

Duggal got her start in jewelry with Rapaport in January 2004. She admits with some humility that she thought Rapaport was a brand name, not an actual person. But she interviewed with the man himself for the gig and got it the same day.

“I will always be tremendously grateful to Martin Rapaport and the people around him for the faith they placed in me. I was young, I wasn’t from an industry family, and diamond trading was still an extraordinarily male-dominated world, particularly when I entered it,” Duggal says.

She says what made that experience so extraordinary was the breadth of the business. Rapaport wasn’t one vertical: She was exposed to diamond trading, auctions, pricing, RapNet, jewelry production, certification services, and the movement of diamonds through some of the world’s most important trading hubs. At Rapaport India, she oversaw an operation through which approximately $4.5 billion worth of diamonds passed annually for GIA certification.

“When you are exposed to goods and markets on that scale, you begin to understand diamonds very differently. You learn that the industry isn’t simply about a beautiful stone,” Duggal says. “You understand pricing, liquidity, supply, demand, manufacturing, certification, consumer confidence, and, above all, the nuances between different markets.”

She left Rapaport in 2017. She also got married and had two children. When she was ready to go back to work, she started looking at what it would take to start her own jewelry brand. She researched lab-grown diamonds versus natural, and she decided to create Escape Privé as a lab-grown diamond fine jewelry brand—and her husband came up with the name.

“Over time, though, the name has come to represent something very personal to me. Escape Privé is about having your own private expression of luxury—jewelry that doesn’t have to conform to somebody else’s idea of what is valuable, what is appropriate, or even what fine jewelry should look like,” Duggal says. “It can simply be about what you love, what brings you joy and how you choose to wear it. So while I didn’t name the brand, I think the name ended up fitting the philosophy behind it rather perfectly.”

Top: Pooja Duggal debuted Escape Privé in 2025 after two decades in the jewelry business as well as a lifelong interest in diamonds. (Photos courtesy of Escape Privé)