Eli Izhakoff

Eli Izhakoff is a leader in the international diamond and jewelry industry, filling a variety of public positions since 1979.

A member of a family that pioneered the diamond industry both in the United States and Israel, he is a partner at J. Izhakoff & Sons, a diamond manufacturing and import/export firm, with offices in New York.

In 1979, he first joined the board of directors of the (Diamond Dealers Club), in New York, the largest diamond exchange in the United States, and in the years that followed held several senior positions, including chairman of the board and secretary. He was elected to serve as treasurer-general of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses, a global body that unites diamond exchanges around the world in 1986, and was appointed a member of its Executive Committee.

In January 1990, Izhakoff was elected president of the Diamond Dealers Club and conceived and formed the Diamond Industry Steering Committee, an umbrella organization of the four diamond trade associations in New York, and served as its first chairman.

At the World Diamond Congress, which was held in May 1991 in London, England, Izhakoff was unanimously elected president of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses (WFDB). He was unanimously re-elected for a second term at the following World Diamond Congress, which was held in Antwerp, Belgium, in June 1993. At the World Diamond Congress held in Tel Aviv, Israel, in May 1996, he was unanimously re-elected for a third term as WFDB president.

During his term as WFDB president his played an instrumental role the expansion of the federation, and oversaw the establishment of new diamond bourses in Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, China, Russia and India.

In June 1995, Izhakoff played a key role in the organization of an international diamond summit, attended by many industry leaders, which revealed for the first time to the world the scope of the Russian diamond industry. It began with a conference in Moscow, and continued with a tour of various mining sites in the Republic of Sakha, during which its president, Mikhail Yefimovich Nikolayev, presented awards of recognition to Izhakoff, Nicholas Oppenheimer and Gary Ralfe of De Beers, and Maurice Tempelsman of Lazare Kaplan International.

Upon completion of his third term as WFDB president at the World Diamond Congress in Bangkok, Thailand, in July 1998, he was unanimously elected as Honorary Life President of the WFDB.

Following the emergence of the conflict diamond crisis in Africa in the late 1990s, Izhakoff was requested by industry leaders to head a new organization that would coordinate efforts to end the trade in rough diamonds financing civil conflict. Called the World Diamond Council (WDC), it was established at the World Diamond Congress in Antwerp, Belgium, in July 2000, and he was unanimously elected as its founding President.

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