Industry

Melanie Grant Steps Down as Head of Responsible Jewellery Council

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Melanie Grant, executive director of the Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC) for the past two years, has resigned, effective today.

She will remain with RJC as a consultant.

John Hall, a former executive at Rio Tinto and Signet Jewelers, will succeed Grant on an interim basis. Hall also served as RJC’s interim executive director for 10 months prior to Grant’s appointment and has been involved with the group since its formation in 2005.

Grant tells JCK that while she enjoyed heading RJC, it was “all-consuming. It’s constant travel, constant meetings, constant emails. That’s just the nature of the thing. It takes a phenomenal amount of energy. I’ve decided that I needed a bit more time to do family stuff and just have a rest. Which is why it’s nice to go to a consultancy position. I can do this, but it’s not all the time.”

Grant says she’s proud that she was able to stabilize the group, which had split over how to handle the membership of Russian miner Alrosa, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. (Alrosa eventually left RJC.)

“When I came in, the organization was in a precarious position,” Grant says. “Working with the team, we were able to get it back on its feet. We are approaching 2,000 members, which is a phenomenal number. So it’s good to go out on a high.”

She’s also proud that RJC developed a standard for lab-grown diamonds and gemstones.

“We felt that the lab industry should adhere to guidelines like everyone else, especially when it comes to claims,” Grant says. “Because every material has a footprint.”

Ultimately, the job taught her that sustainability is a more complicated subject than she’d realized.

“I’ve always been on the outside of jewelry, so to get on the inside was very helpful,” says Grant. “As much as we try and make sustainability simple, it isn’t. It’s a complex, ever-moving topic. Outside people say, ‘Why can’t it just happen fast?’ But it takes time to do it well. It’s going to be a learning curve for all of us.

“When I came in, I wanted people to not feel bad about getting it wrong, to just start something, because sustainability will just get more important as time goes on. With AI, the digital transition, governments fighting for mineral dominance, sustainability is absolutely going to be part of the value proposition for jewelry.”

Prior to taking over at RJC, Grant worked as a journalist. This week, an article she wrote on Black jewelry designers appeared in The New York Times.

Her future plans include teaching at a “jewelry summer camp,” which she can’t name yet.

“I’ve never taught anything before,” she says. “It’s the first summer school of its kind, as far as we know.”

Grant is also working with publisher Phaidon on The Jewelry Book, a survey of the art’s last 200 years, along the lines of Phaidon’s The Art Book and The Fashion Book. It is scheduled to be released this June.

(Photo by Andrew Werner, courtesy of RJC)

By: Rob Bates

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