Gary Ralfe

Gary Ralfe    (businessman)
Born	15 September 1944
Alma mater	University of Cambridge
De Beers/CEO In office January 1998 - February 2006  Managing Director of the CSO In office January 1994 - January 1998

Gerard Maritz "Gary" Ralfe is a South African businessman and former CEO of De Beers.

Focused on diamonds

Gary Ralfe joined Anglo American in 1966 and served the corporation in South Africa, Australia and France. In 1974, Ralfe started working in what was known as the Diamond Section of the Chairman’s Office in Johannesburg. Since then, with the exception of a brief interlude between 1983 and 1985 as secretary to the executive committee of Anglo American, Ralfe has focused on the diamond industry. He spent five years in Antwerp and, in January 1986, was transferred to the then Central Selling Organisation (CSO) in London.

Gary Ralfe was a director of De Beers Consolidated Mines Limited (DBCM) from March 1990 to May 2006 and was Deputy Chairman of DBCM from May 2004 to April 2006.

CSO and De Beers

Ralfe became Managing Director of the CSO in January 1994 and, at the beginning of 1998 was appointed Managing Director of De Beers. He retired in February 2006, but continued to serve as a non-executive director of De Beers SA.

Abandoning the cartel

In July 2000, De Beers decided to abandon CSO's 60-year price-fixing tradition of attempting to stabilise supply and demand in the world gemstone trade and concentrate instead on mining and marketing. Managing Director Gary Ralfe hoped to use De Beers' dominant position to persuade everyone in the industry to spend much more on marketing, and confirmed the company would continue its famous generic advertisements with the slogan "A diamond is forever".

Commendation

Upon Ralfe's retirement in 2006, De Beers Chairman Nicky Oppenheimer said his energy, drive, dedication and loyalty have been essential ingredients in De Beers continuing success:

“Gary will be remembered for his unflagging search for innovation and continuous improvement in the way we organise our business, and for the invaluable role he played in guiding the restructuring of De Beers – including our conversion from a supply to a demand driven business, and in the privatisation of the company.

"As MD, Gary was largely responsible for an historic chapter in the development of the De Beers Family of Companies.”

Education

"A History of Michaelhouse by Gary Ralfe"

Gary Ralfe was educated at the boys boarding school Michaelhouse School, South Africa where he was Senior Prefect. In 2024 Ralfe wrote a much-acclaimed history of Michaelhouse School.

Ralfe went on to attend the University of Cambridge.

 

Related Document

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:De Beers to abandon cartel	Article	30 May 2000	Dan Atkinson	De Beers hit a high point in profit terms in the boom year 1989-90, but the following decade was to cost its shareholders billions of dollars. The break-up of the Soviet Union brought a flood of illicit diamonds on to the market, as did the civil war in Angola. In abandoning the CSO diamond cartel, Managing Director Gary Ralfe hopes to use De Beers' dominant position to persuade everyone in the industry to spend much more on marketing.

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References

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