Board of Directors

Ian Smillie (Chairman)

Ian Smillie was a founder of the Canadian NGO, Inter Pares, and was Executive Director of CUSO. He has worked on projects with the Humanitarianism and War Project at Tufts University (now the Feinstein International Center) since 1997 and was an adjunct professor at Tulane University from 1998 to 2001. As a development consultant he has worked for many Canadian, American and European organizations. His latest books are Managing for Change: Leadership, Strategy and Management in Asian NGOs (with John Hailey, 2001), The Charity of Nations: Humanitarian Action in a Calculating World (with Larry Minear, 2005) and Freedom From Want: The Remarkable Story of BRAC (2009). Ian Smillie was a founder-participant in the 49-government ‘Kimberley Process’ which has developed and is managing a global certification system to halt the traffic in ‘conflict diamonds’. He was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2003.

Dr. Muzong Kodi (Vice Chairman)

Muzong Kodi, holds a PhD in African History from Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA. He started his professional career as an academic and taught at the University of Lubumbashi in the DRC from 1976 to 1979 and the University of Nairobi in Kenya from 1979 to 1983. From 1983 to 1993, he was Director of Publications at the African Centre for Monetary Studies in Dakar, Senegal. He then worked for international non-governmental organizations, including Amnesty International (as Director of International Development, from 1994 to 2002) and Transparency International (as Regional Director for Africa and the Middle East, from 2002 to 2005). He is currently an Associate Fellow of the Africa Programme of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) where he coordinates the British Congo Forum and focuses his research and consultancy work on governance, anti-corruption, human rights and civil society organizations in Africa.

Matthew Runci (Secretary)

Matt Runci is President and CEO of Jewelers of America, Inc. (JA), the national trade association for retail jewelers. Since joining JA in October 1995, he has guided the association in the development of responsible business practices for JA's more than 11,000 member stores. Runci and JA were also centrally involved through the World Diamond Council in the establishment of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, to prevent the trade in conflict diamonds. In 2005, JA became a founding member of the Council for Responsible Jewellery Practices (CRJP), a mine-to-retail supply chain initiative working to institute a variety of ethical, social and environmental practices for its members. Runci currently serves as Chairman of the CRJP Board of Directors. He also currently serves as Chairman of the Ethics Commission of CIBJO, the World Jewellery Confederation, and is a member of the board of directors of Jewelers for Children, an industry-wide charitable foundation.

John Lowden (Treasurer)

John Lowden is a Chartered Accountant and former Partner of Ernst & Young LLP. He has more than 30 years experience dealing with financial and tax planning issues involving a wide variety of assignments including major corporate reorganizations and international engagements for large companies. John has dealt with a broad range of cross-border corporate matters and tax treaty issues. He has written and lectured widely on taxation and accounting matters.

Andrew Bone

Andrew Bone is Director of International Relations at De Beers. He started with De Beers as a diamond sorter and worked in many and various sections of the Rough Diamond Division, including overseas secondments in South Africa and Belgium. Later, he became an overseas buyer for six years, serving mostly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Following a year in the Sales Department, he joined Marketing Liaison and Corporate Communications where he headed a small team that worked on developing stakeholder relations and contributing to the establishment of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme. He went on to develop the concept of the Diamond Development Initiative with NGOs, Partnership Africa Canada and Global Witness.Andrew Bone is also a director of the World Diamond Council and is a part-time lecturer at the University of Westminster's Business School where he teaches Marketing.

Stephen D’Esposito

Stephen D’Esposito is President of RESOLVE and the EARTH SOLUTIOS NETWORK and is the former President and CEO of EARTHWORKS. RESOLVE is a non-profit organization that helps diverse groups solve complex environmental, social, and health challenges. The EARTH SOLUTIONS NETWORK is a new RESOLVE initiative where stakeholders bring ideas, test them and incubate them into sustainable solutions.

Stéphane Fischler

Stéphane Fischler, Secretary-General/Treasurer of the International Diamond Manufacturers Association (IDMA), is a third generation diamantaire who started to work at Fischler Diamonds, Antwerp, in 1977. He has served as Vice-President of SBD (Belgian Manufacturers Association) since 1994, was Vice-President of IDMA from 1996-1997 and was elected IDMA’s Secretary-General/Treasurer in 1998. Stephane is a founding member of the World Diamond Council (WDC), is a member of its steering committee and in 2006 was elected vice-chairman. He is also President of the ECDM (European Council of Diamond Manufacturers). He was a board member of the Diamond High Council (HRD-now AWDC), has been its Treasurer and vice-president. In 2008 Stéphane was elected Chairman of the International Diamond Council.

Dr. Gavin Hilson

Dr. Gavin Hilson trained in geosciences at the University of Toronto, and subsequently completed a Ph.D. in environmental technology at the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine. He has taught at the University of Cardiff and currently holds the post of Lecturer in Environment and Development at the Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Reading. Dr. Hilson's current research centres on community development and environmental management in small-scale mining communities in West Africa and the Guianas. He has written extensively on artisanal mining, with an emphasis on Ghana.

Jon Hobbs

Jon Hobbs is Lead Policy Analyst; mining and minerals and environmental assessment at the UK's Department for International Development (DFID). He has worked extensively in Africa with the private sector and development organizations. He is member of the OECD's Advisory Bureau for Environment and Chairman of the OECD Task Team on Strategic Environmental Assessment. He also Chairs the World Bank hosted Communities and Small-scale Mining (CASM) initiative. He leads the UK delegation to the Inter Governmental Forum on Mining, Minerals and Metals and Sustainable Development, is a member of the International Financial Institutions' Working Group on the Environment and was recently appointed to the United Nation's Development Programme's Advisory Panel on energy and environment issues. Since 2006 he has been DFID's representative to the European Commission's delegation to the Kimberley Process.