Like a lost Alice, she came to the wonderland that is the diamond industry almost by chance, more than two decades ago. Till then, Nirupa Bhatt had garnered diverse experience in her working life, but had no connection with, or background in, the gems and jewellery industry. %% Born into a family with a services background, Nirupa’s father was a Marine Engineer and Naval Architect based in Mumbai. One of four children, she has two brothers and a sister. As it turned out, the brothers went on to become engineers and Nirupa herself married an engineer as well.%% After she lost her father at an early age – she was only four years old – it fell upon her homemaker mother to raise the family on her own. “My mother is a strong determined lady,” says Nirupa. “My values and approach to life have been moulded by her. I also inherited a strong sense of discipline, and sincerity of purpose from her. If you told her that you would do something, you had to do it!”%% From her early years too, Nirupa’s nature revelled in all things precise and definite. “My favourite subject was Science – Physics & Chemistry – I was not very good at languages,” she says with a reminiscent smile. “I didn’t like to grapple with the abstract, I liked things to be black and white.”%% While in college, Nirupa joined the National Cadet Corps (NCC). “Their disciplined way of leading people attracted me to the body,” she remembers. The time spent as a cadet, and later rising to Senior Under Officer, the topmost rank in the NCC, proved to be an exhilarating one for the otherwise introverted young girl that she was at the time. It was then that the first lessons in putting her best foot forward, realising her own potential and even stretching it were learnt. She took part in the NCC camps and that also gave her the experience of traveling to different areas of the country from an early age.%% The NCC years also established another facet – it brought out Nirupa’s winning streak. She not only won the Best Cadet of the Company Award in her passing out year, but also was declared the Best Shot at an All India Rifle shooting Competition.%% The NCC had left such a deep impression on Nirupa, that it hardly comes as a surprise to learn that on leaving college, Nirupa’s first choice of career was the armed forces. “But at that time there was no recruitment for women officers,” she laments ruefully. “That came only recently.” So she opted for the next best on her list of careers – teaching. “I had always loved both learning and teaching,” she explains. “By being a teacher, I could do both. And most importantly, my passionate desire was to make a difference to life.”%% After a stint of teaching Nirupa got the opportunity to join an export business working as an assistant. The company was involved in a broad and diverse spectrum of areas like handicrafts and electricals and it also handled various projects. This job gave her the chance to travel beyond the borders of the country – Europe and Africa opened out before her as she regularly travelled to places on those continents. “Each place I went to broadened my horizons,” says Nirupa. “I learnt to be more accepting of new things, of diversity.” %%

Always the avid learner and forever looking to grow in an all-round manner, Nirupa joined the Bombay Management Chamber of the Mumbai Merchants’ Association. This gave her an understanding of industry associations and their workings.%% Another important experience in her career came when she worked with an engineering company for a few years and got the opportunity to set up an all India Dealers Network for it. This not only gave her the opportunity to travel extensively around the country with large automobiles manufacturers, but also valuable insights into sales and marketing. %% The milestone moment came when she got a job with the Trade Office of Sweden in Mumbai. %% Interestingly, she had earlier applied for a post with the Canadian Trade Office, for an opening that had come up. Though Nirupa did well in all the rounds leading up to the recruitment, and was also shortlisted, she finally lost out as the job required a lot of traveling in the course of their marketing activities, and the potential employers were not sure that an Indian woman could handle that. %% Maybe she was destined to take another road, for, to her good fortune, she landed a job with the Swedish Trade Office instead. The work involved assisting Swedish companies which wanted to do business in India on many fronts – preparing feasibility reports, researching regulatory frameworks, connecting the Swedish companies to possible partners in India. “It was a great experience working with the Swedish Trade Office,” Nirupa recalls. Unfortunately, after a while, the Swedish authorities decided to shut down the office in Mumbai. %% It so happened that Argyle, the company (now taken over by Rio Tinto) which ran the Argyle mine in Australia had decided to set up office in India and was on the look out for someone to head the office. It was the outgoing Swedish Trade Commissioner himself who recommended Nirupa to the Argyle executives. Initially, the Argyle reaction was similar to that of the Canadians – they were looking for male executives. However, a meeting was set up and the rest is history. %% Despite their earlier reservations, their interaction with Nirupa and her excellent track record made Argyle put aside their misgivings and appoint her for the job. That was in February 1989. %% At the time, neither Nirupa nor the Argyle team could have envisaged how difficult the initial period would be, nor how brialliantly the arrangement would turn out thereafter. That was a period when the Argyle mine, having recently come onstream was known for its high volume production of small diamonds, most of which was destined for the cutting wheels in India, the only place which could effectively cut and polish their extremely difficult rough stones. Yet, Argyle was more or less an unknown quantity to the Indian market as they had been marketing their rough through De Beers, the mining conglomerate familiar to all diamantaires and the retail trade. %% Thus began Nirupa’s journey in the gems and jewellery industry – with the odds pretty much stacked against her. She was a woman, from outside the industry, representing a virtually new company, itself a little known entity. And she was trying to break into, and win the confidence and trust of, an industry which was a mystery wrapped in an enigma for the rest of the world. The members of which, moreover, functioned almost like some cabalistic Masonic group.%% Initially, as she made her rounds, she would be greeted with politeness, but also with aloofness. Her spate of questions about diamonds, the manufacturing process, et al, no doubt evoked a great deal of discomfort; especially as diamantaires those days firmly believed that the less said about the business to those outside their circles, the better. But her sheer persistence, her friendly nature and sincere interest in the industry eventually won their hearts. That, and the dawning awareness that the Argyle product would actually be good for their business, and the realisation that the company would do all it could to assist them technologically and in understanding the product better.%%

“Those days I also travelled extensively in Gujarat going to the smaller factories and smaller manufacturers,” recalls Nirupa. “That is where I developed my understanding about the industry and developed strong grassroot level contacts. Some of them who were small then have grown into large successful organisations today.” %% Today, when she remembers those initial years, she is full of gratitude to the people who nurtured her then. “I was fortunate to have met some really wonderful individuals,” she says. “People were really generous with their time and shared a wealth of knowledge with me. It was they who helped me to really understand the industry.” %% Those days have left a mark in another way as well. “I feel it was like a kind of investment that people made, and I feel the need to give back to the industry. Something which I have tried to do at different levels – whether it is through participating actively with the GJEPC and GJF, or involving myself in any other industry level activity.” %% Indeed, Nirupa’s work has made a deep impact on the industry in more ways than one. For one, the Indo-Argyle Diamond Council set up in 1994 with her at the helm in India, allowed the country’s jewellery export industry to take a huge leap in the US market. Back then, the Indian jewellery export industry was in its fledgling state, and the perception of Indian jewellery in the US was at an all-time low. By working at both ends – with Indian manufactuers to improve product and service quality and with retailers in the US to correct perspectives and provide true information – the IADC was able to give a real boost to jewllery exports.%% Then there was the Business Excellence Model which was initiated by Nirupa when she was with Rio Tinto (formerlyArgyle), as well. At a time when there was growing consumer concern and interest in business standards, the BEM was an industry specific certification of business practices and an assurance that the certified companies were adhering to set standards. The BEM programme encompassed manufacturers as well as retailers, and became one of the early standard bearers for consumer confidence issues within the country. Today the need to ensure that companies are transparent, adhere to ethical practices and maintain standards is widely accepted. Industry bodies too have taken it upon themselves to introduce some form of certification or the other. %% By the time she left Rio Tinto, Nirupa had not only established herself firmly in the gems and jewellery industry of the country but she had left a solid body of work behind her. “My most important task was to build a bridge or link between the mining company in Ausstralia and the cutting industry in India,” defines Nirupa. She not only managed to do this brilliantly through several initiatives, including taking groups of diamantaires to the mine in Australia, she also helped the mining company reach out downstream to the retail industry and become known widely within the country. While doing all this she ensured technical support to the diamantaires, and educational support to retailers.%%

Little wonder that when the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) decided to set up shop in India, and began the hunt for a person to head their operations here, they picked the gem from Rio Tinto. On January 1, 2008, Nirupa began her new stint as Managing Director India & Middle East. With the GIA focused on laboratory and educational services, it is almost as if Nirupa has come full circle and gone back to her first career – if not as a teacher more like a principal or headmistress!%% While the certification business is one solid area of operations for the GIA and one which out is already established, what has been a growing area of activity is in the knowledge seminar areas. The GIA, under Nirupa’s helm has made a huge thrust to take the knowledge platforms far and wide through the length and breadth of the country, missing out no opportunity to spread the good word. Whether it is at the trade fairs held in different cities, or through retailers associations, GIA has been busy spreading awreness and information. They are now slowly reaching out to consumers as well through advertorials in various magazines. %% “What I continue to do is go beyond the job, to take a wider focus and add value to the industry in whatever way I can and push the envelop as much as possible,” sums up Nirupa of her approach. “I have been very fortunate to have extremely supportive people and organisations whether it was at Argyle/Rio or now in GIA.”%% Nirupa is today on the Governing Board of Directors of the GJF, the apex body of the retail trade in the country and is also a member of the Continuing Education Committee of that body. She is the founder President of the Women’s Jewelry Association (WJA) chapter in India. WJA is a US based organization for women in the jewellery trade, and the Indian chapter was the first international chapters to be set up. %% Needless to say, a personality like hers cannot go unrecognised and unsung. Nirupa has achieved several prestigious awards in the course of her career – she received the “Doyenne of the Year” award from the U.S.-based Indian Diamond and Colourstone Association (IDCA); the “Eminent Personality of the Year” award from The Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council; and the Women’s Jewellery Association’s (WJA) “Award for Excellence” under the category of Special Services & Education etc. in the past. %% While Nirupa is a disciplined, hardworking executive always on the go, on the one hand, there is a core of fun and warmth with laughter always ready to bubble up on the other. Equally, she is a doting mother and caring wife; and husband Kiran and son Aditya form very much her circle of comfort, one to which she is happy to return at the end of each day or each working trip. And when its time to relax, its movies and music that gets Nirupa going. %% The complete woman. Standing tall in a man’s world. %%

Like a lost Alice, she came to the wonderland that is the diamond industry almost by chance, more than two decades ago. Till then, Nirupa Bhatt had garnered diverse experience in her working life, but had no connection with, or background in, the gems and jewellery industry. %% Born into a family with a services background, Nirupa’s father was a Marine Engineer and Naval Architect based in Mumbai. One of four children, she has two brothers and a sister. As it turned out, the brothers went on to become engineers and Nirupa herself married an engineer as well.%% After she lost her father at an early age – she was only four years old – it fell upon her homemaker mother to raise the family on her own. “My mother is a strong determined lady,” says Nirupa. “My values and approach to life have been moulded by her. I also inherited a strong sense of discipline, and sincerity of purpose from her. If you told her that you would do something, you had to do it!”%% From her early years too, Nirupa’s nature revelled in all things precise and definite. “My favourite subject was Science – Physics & Chemistry – I was not very good at languages,” she says with a reminiscent smile. “I didn’t like to grapple with the abstract, I liked things to be black and white.”%% While in college, Nirupa joined the National Cadet Corps (NCC). “Their disciplined way of leading people attracted me to the body,” she remembers. The time spent as a cadet, and later rising to Senior Under Officer, the topmost rank in the NCC, proved to be an exhilarating one for the otherwise introverted young girl that she was at the time. It was then that the first lessons in putting her best foot forward, realising her own potential and even stretching it were learnt. She took part in the NCC camps and that also gave her the experience of traveling to different areas of the country from an early age.%% The NCC years also established another facet – it brought out Nirupa’s winning streak. She not only won the Best Cadet of the Company Award in her passing out year, but also was declared the Best Shot at an All India Rifle shooting Competition.%% The NCC had left such a deep impression on Nirupa, that it hardly comes as a surprise to learn that on leaving college, Nirupa’s first choice of career was the armed forces. “But at that time there was no recruitment for women officers,” she laments ruefully. “That came only recently.” So she opted for the next best on her list of careers – teaching. “I had always loved both learning and teaching,” she explains. “By being a teacher, I could do both. And most importantly, my passionate desire was to make a difference to life.”%% After a stint of teaching Nirupa got the opportunity to join an export business working as an assistant. The company was involved in a broad and diverse spectrum of areas like handicrafts and electricals and it also handled various projects. This job gave her the chance to travel beyond the borders of the country – Europe and Africa opened out before her as she regularly travelled to places on those continents. “Each place I went to broadened my horizons,” says Nirupa. “I learnt to be more accepting of new things, of diversity.” %%

Always the avid learner and forever looking to grow in an all-round manner, Nirupa joined the Bombay Management Chamber of the Mumbai Merchants’ Association. This gave her an understanding of industry associations and their workings.%% Another important experience in her career came when she worked with an engineering company for a few years and got the opportunity to set up an all India Dealers Network for it. This not only gave her the opportunity to travel extensively around the country with large automobiles manufacturers, but also valuable insights into sales and marketing. %% The milestone moment came when she got a job with the Trade Office of Sweden in Mumbai. %% Interestingly, she had earlier applied for a post with the Canadian Trade Office, for an opening that had come up. Though Nirupa did well in all the rounds leading up to the recruitment, and was also shortlisted, she finally lost out as the job required a lot of traveling in the course of their marketing activities, and the potential employers were not sure that an Indian woman could handle that. %% Maybe she was destined to take another road, for, to her good fortune, she landed a job with the Swedish Trade Office instead. The work involved assisting Swedish companies which wanted to do business in India on many fronts – preparing feasibility reports, researching regulatory frameworks, connecting the Swedish companies to possible partners in India. “It was a great experience working with the Swedish Trade Office,” Nirupa recalls. Unfortunately, after a while, the Swedish authorities decided to shut down the office in Mumbai. %% It so happened that Argyle, the company (now taken over by Rio Tinto) which ran the Argyle mine in Australia had decided to set up office in India and was on the look out for someone to head the office. It was the outgoing Swedish Trade Commissioner himself who recommended Nirupa to the Argyle executives. Initially, the Argyle reaction was similar to that of the Canadians – they were looking for male executives. However, a meeting was set up and the rest is history. %% Despite their earlier reservations, their interaction with Nirupa and her excellent track record made Argyle put aside their misgivings and appoint her for the job. That was in February 1989. %% At the time, neither Nirupa nor the Argyle team could have envisaged how difficult the initial period would be, nor how brialliantly the arrangement would turn out thereafter. That was a period when the Argyle mine, having recently come onstream was known for its high volume production of small diamonds, most of which was destined for the cutting wheels in India, the only place which could effectively cut and polish their extremely difficult rough stones. Yet, Argyle was more or less an unknown quantity to the Indian market as they had been marketing their rough through De Beers, the mining conglomerate familiar to all diamantaires and the retail trade. %% Thus began Nirupa’s journey in the gems and jewellery industry – with the odds pretty much stacked against her. She was a woman, from outside the industry, representing a virtually new company, itself a little known entity. And she was trying to break into, and win the confidence and trust of, an industry which was a mystery wrapped in an enigma for the rest of the world. The members of which, moreover, functioned almost like some cabalistic Masonic group.%% Initially, as she made her rounds, she would be greeted with politeness, but also with aloofness. Her spate of questions about diamonds, the manufacturing process, et al, no doubt evoked a great deal of discomfort; especially as diamantaires those days firmly believed that the less said about the business to those outside their circles, the better. But her sheer persistence, her friendly nature and sincere interest in the industry eventually won their hearts. That, and the dawning awareness that the Argyle product would actually be good for their business, and the realisation that the company would do all it could to assist them technologically and in understanding the product better.%%

“Those days I also travelled extensively in Gujarat going to the smaller factories and smaller manufacturers,” recalls Nirupa. “That is where I developed my understanding about the industry and developed strong grassroot level contacts. Some of them who were small then have grown into large successful organisations today.” %% Today, when she remembers those initial years, she is full of gratitude to the people who nurtured her then. “I was fortunate to have met some really wonderful individuals,” she says. “People were really generous with their time and shared a wealth of knowledge with me. It was they who helped me to really understand the industry.” %% Those days have left a mark in another way as well. “I feel it was like a kind of investment that people made, and I feel the need to give back to the industry. Something which I have tried to do at different levels – whether it is through participating actively with the GJEPC and GJF, or involving myself in any other industry level activity.” %% Indeed, Nirupa’s work has made a deep impact on the industry in more ways than one. For one, the Indo-Argyle Diamond Council set up in 1994 with her at the helm in India, allowed the country’s jewellery export industry to take a huge leap in the US market. Back then, the Indian jewellery export industry was in its fledgling state, and the perception of Indian jewellery in the US was at an all-time low. By working at both ends – with Indian manufactuers to improve product and service quality and with retailers in the US to correct perspectives and provide true information – the IADC was able to give a real boost to jewllery exports.%% Then there was the Business Excellence Model which was initiated by Nirupa when she was with Rio Tinto (formerlyArgyle), as well. At a time when there was growing consumer concern and interest in business standards, the BEM was an industry specific certification of business practices and an assurance that the certified companies were adhering to set standards. The BEM programme encompassed manufacturers as well as retailers, and became one of the early standard bearers for consumer confidence issues within the country. Today the need to ensure that companies are transparent, adhere to ethical practices and maintain standards is widely accepted. Industry bodies too have taken it upon themselves to introduce some form of certification or the other. %% By the time she left Rio Tinto, Nirupa had not only established herself firmly in the gems and jewellery industry of the country but she had left a solid body of work behind her. “My most important task was to build a bridge or link between the mining company in Ausstralia and the cutting industry in India,” defines Nirupa. She not only managed to do this brilliantly through several initiatives, including taking groups of diamantaires to the mine in Australia, she also helped the mining company reach out downstream to the retail industry and become known widely within the country. While doing all this she ensured technical support to the diamantaires, and educational support to retailers.%%

Little wonder that when the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) decided to set up shop in India, and began the hunt for a person to head their operations here, they picked the gem from Rio Tinto. On January 1, 2008, Nirupa began her new stint as Managing Director India & Middle East. With the GIA focused on laboratory and educational services, it is almost as if Nirupa has come full circle and gone back to her first career – if not as a teacher more like a principal or headmistress!%% While the certification business is one solid area of operations for the GIA and one which out is already established, what has been a growing area of activity is in the knowledge seminar areas. The GIA, under Nirupa’s helm has made a huge thrust to take the knowledge platforms far and wide through the length and breadth of the country, missing out no opportunity to spread the good word. Whether it is at the trade fairs held in different cities, or through retailers associations, GIA has been busy spreading awreness and information. They are now slowly reaching out to consumers as well through advertorials in various magazines. %% “What I continue to do is go beyond the job, to take a wider focus and add value to the industry in whatever way I can and push the envelop as much as possible,” sums up Nirupa of her approach. “I have been very fortunate to have extremely supportive people and organisations whether it was at Argyle/Rio or now in GIA.”%% Nirupa is today on the Governing Board of Directors of the GJF, the apex body of the retail trade in the country and is also a member of the Continuing Education Committee of that body. She is the founder President of the Women’s Jewelry Association (WJA) chapter in India. WJA is a US based organization for women in the jewellery trade, and the Indian chapter was the first international chapters to be set up. %% Needless to say, a personality like hers cannot go unrecognised and unsung. Nirupa has achieved several prestigious awards in the course of her career – she received the “Doyenne of the Year” award from the U.S.-based Indian Diamond and Colourstone Association (IDCA); the “Eminent Personality of the Year” award from The Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council; and the Women’s Jewellery Association’s (WJA) “Award for Excellence” under the category of Special Services & Education etc. in the past. %% While Nirupa is a disciplined, hardworking executive always on the go, on the one hand, there is a core of fun and warmth with laughter always ready to bubble up on the other. Equally, she is a doting mother and caring wife; and husband Kiran and son Aditya form very much her circle of comfort, one to which she is happy to return at the end of each day or each working trip. And when its time to relax, its movies and music that gets Nirupa going. %% The complete woman. Standing tall in a man’s world. %%

Like a lost Alice, she came to the wonderland that is the diamond industry almost by chance, more than two decades ago. Till then, Nirupa Bhatt had garnered diverse experience in her working life, but had no connection with, or background in, the gems and jewellery industry. %% Born into a family with a services background, Nirupa’s father was a Marine Engineer and Naval Architect based in Mumbai. One of four children, she has two brothers and a sister. As it turned out, the brothers went on to become engineers and Nirupa herself married an engineer as well.%% After she lost her father at an early age – she was only four years old – it fell upon her homemaker mother to raise the family on her own. “My mother is a strong determined lady,” says Nirupa. “My values and approach to life have been moulded by her. I also inherited a strong sense of discipline, and sincerity of purpose from her. If you told her that you would do something, you had to do it!”%% From her early years too, Nirupa’s nature revelled in all things precise and definite. “My favourite subject was Science – Physics & Chemistry – I was not very good at languages,” she says with a reminiscent smile. “I didn’t like to grapple with the abstract, I liked things to be black and white.”%% While in college, Nirupa joined the National Cadet Corps (NCC). “Their disciplined way of leading people attracted me to the body,” she remembers. The time spent as a cadet, and later rising to Senior Under Officer, the topmost rank in the NCC, proved to be an exhilarating one for the otherwise introverted young girl that she was at the time. It was then that the first lessons in putting her best foot forward, realising her own potential and even stretching it were learnt. She took part in the NCC camps and that also gave her the experience of traveling to different areas of the country from an early age.%% The NCC years also established another facet – it brought out Nirupa’s winning streak. She not only won the Best Cadet of the Company Award in her passing out year, but also was declared the Best Shot at an All India Rifle shooting Competition.%% The NCC had left such a deep impression on Nirupa, that it hardly comes as a surprise to learn that on leaving college, Nirupa’s first choice of career was the armed forces. “But at that time there was no recruitment for women officers,” she laments ruefully. “That came only recently.” So she opted for the next best on her list of careers – teaching. “I had always loved both learning and teaching,” she explains. “By being a teacher, I could do both. And most importantly, my passionate desire was to make a difference to life.”%% After a stint of teaching Nirupa got the opportunity to join an export business working as an assistant. The company was involved in a broad and diverse spectrum of areas like handicrafts and electricals and it also handled various projects. This job gave her the chance to travel beyond the borders of the country – Europe and Africa opened out before her as she regularly travelled to places on those continents. “Each place I went to broadened my horizons,” says Nirupa. “I learnt to be more accepting of new things, of diversity.” %%

Always the avid learner and forever looking to grow in an all-round manner, Nirupa joined the Bombay Management Chamber of the Mumbai Merchants’ Association. This gave her an understanding of industry associations and their workings.%% Another important experience in her career came when she worked with an engineering company for a few years and got the opportunity to set up an all India Dealers Network for it. This not only gave her the opportunity to travel extensively around the country with large automobiles manufacturers, but also valuable insights into sales and marketing. %% The milestone moment came when she got a job with the Trade Office of Sweden in Mumbai. %% Interestingly, she had earlier applied for a post with the Canadian Trade Office, for an opening that had come up. Though Nirupa did well in all the rounds leading up to the recruitment, and was also shortlisted, she finally lost out as the job required a lot of traveling in the course of their marketing activities, and the potential employers were not sure that an Indian woman could handle that. %% Maybe she was destined to take another road, for, to her good fortune, she landed a job with the Swedish Trade Office instead. The work involved assisting Swedish companies which wanted to do business in India on many fronts – preparing feasibility reports, researching regulatory frameworks, connecting the Swedish companies to possible partners in India. “It was a great experience working with the Swedish Trade Office,” Nirupa recalls. Unfortunately, after a while, the Swedish authorities decided to shut down the office in Mumbai. %% It so happened that Argyle, the company (now taken over by Rio Tinto) which ran the Argyle mine in Australia had decided to set up office in India and was on the look out for someone to head the office. It was the outgoing Swedish Trade Commissioner himself who recommended Nirupa to the Argyle executives. Initially, the Argyle reaction was similar to that of the Canadians – they were looking for male executives. However, a meeting was set up and the rest is history. %% Despite their earlier reservations, their interaction with Nirupa and her excellent track record made Argyle put aside their misgivings and appoint her for the job. That was in February 1989. %% At the time, neither Nirupa nor the Argyle team could have envisaged how difficult the initial period would be, nor how brialliantly the arrangement would turn out thereafter. That was a period when the Argyle mine, having recently come onstream was known for its high volume production of small diamonds, most of which was destined for the cutting wheels in India, the only place which could effectively cut and polish their extremely difficult rough stones. Yet, Argyle was more or less an unknown quantity to the Indian market as they had been marketing their rough through De Beers, the mining conglomerate familiar to all diamantaires and the retail trade. %% Thus began Nirupa’s journey in the gems and jewellery industry – with the odds pretty much stacked against her. She was a woman, from outside the industry, representing a virtually new company, itself a little known entity. And she was trying to break into, and win the confidence and trust of, an industry which was a mystery wrapped in an enigma for the rest of the world. The members of which, moreover, functioned almost like some cabalistic Masonic group.%% Initially, as she made her rounds, she would be greeted with politeness, but also with aloofness. Her spate of questions about diamonds, the manufacturing process, et al, no doubt evoked a great deal of discomfort; especially as diamantaires those days firmly believed that the less said about the business to those outside their circles, the better. But her sheer persistence, her friendly nature and sincere interest in the industry eventually won their hearts. That, and the dawning awareness that the Argyle product would actually be good for their business, and the realisation that the company would do all it could to assist them technologically and in understanding the product better.%%

“Those days I also travelled extensively in Gujarat going to the smaller factories and smaller manufacturers,” recalls Nirupa. “That is where I developed my understanding about the industry and developed strong grassroot level contacts. Some of them who were small then have grown into large successful organisations today.” %% Today, when she remembers those initial years, she is full of gratitude to the people who nurtured her then. “I was fortunate to have met some really wonderful individuals,” she says. “People were really generous with their time and shared a wealth of knowledge with me. It was they who helped me to really understand the industry.” %% Those days have left a mark in another way as well. “I feel it was like a kind of investment that people made, and I feel the need to give back to the industry. Something which I have tried to do at different levels – whether it is through participating actively with the GJEPC and GJF, or involving myself in any other industry level activity.” %% Indeed, Nirupa’s work has made a deep impact on the industry in more ways than one. For one, the Indo-Argyle Diamond Council set up in 1994 with her at the helm in India, allowed the country’s jewellery export industry to take a huge leap in the US market. Back then, the Indian jewellery export industry was in its fledgling state, and the perception of Indian jewellery in the US was at an all-time low. By working at both ends – with Indian manufactuers to improve product and service quality and with retailers in the US to correct perspectives and provide true information – the IADC was able to give a real boost to jewllery exports.%% Then there was the Business Excellence Model which was initiated by Nirupa when she was with Rio Tinto (formerlyArgyle), as well. At a time when there was growing consumer concern and interest in business standards, the BEM was an industry specific certification of business practices and an assurance that the certified companies were adhering to set standards. The BEM programme encompassed manufacturers as well as retailers, and became one of the early standard bearers for consumer confidence issues within the country. Today the need to ensure that companies are transparent, adhere to ethical practices and maintain standards is widely accepted. Industry bodies too have taken it upon themselves to introduce some form of certification or the other. %% By the time she left Rio Tinto, Nirupa had not only established herself firmly in the gems and jewellery industry of the country but she had left a solid body of work behind her. “My most important task was to build a bridge or link between the mining company in Ausstralia and the cutting industry in India,” defines Nirupa. She not only managed to do this brilliantly through several initiatives, including taking groups of diamantaires to the mine in Australia, she also helped the mining company reach out downstream to the retail industry and become known widely within the country. While doing all this she ensured technical support to the diamantaires, and educational support to retailers.%%

Little wonder that when the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) decided to set up shop in India, and began the hunt for a person to head their operations here, they picked the gem from Rio Tinto. On January 1, 2008, Nirupa began her new stint as Managing Director India & Middle East. With the GIA focused on laboratory and educational services, it is almost as if Nirupa has come full circle and gone back to her first career – if not as a teacher more like a principal or headmistress!%% While the certification business is one solid area of operations for the GIA and one which out is already established, what has been a growing area of activity is in the knowledge seminar areas. The GIA, under Nirupa’s helm has made a huge thrust to take the knowledge platforms far and wide through the length and breadth of the country, missing out no opportunity to spread the good word. Whether it is at the trade fairs held in different cities, or through retailers associations, GIA has been busy spreading awreness and information. They are now slowly reaching out to consumers as well through advertorials in various magazines. %% “What I continue to do is go beyond the job, to take a wider focus and add value to the industry in whatever way I can and push the envelop as much as possible,” sums up Nirupa of her approach. “I have been very fortunate to have extremely supportive people and organisations whether it was at Argyle/Rio or now in GIA.”%% Nirupa is today on the Governing Board of Directors of the GJF, the apex body of the retail trade in the country and is also a member of the Continuing Education Committee of that body. She is the founder President of the Women’s Jewelry Association (WJA) chapter in India. WJA is a US based organization for women in the jewellery trade, and the Indian chapter was the first international chapters to be set up. %% Needless to say, a personality like hers cannot go unrecognised and unsung. Nirupa has achieved several prestigious awards in the course of her career – she received the “Doyenne of the Year” award from the U.S.-based Indian Diamond and Colourstone Association (IDCA); the “Eminent Personality of the Year” award from The Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council; and the Women’s Jewellery Association’s (WJA) “Award for Excellence” under the category of Special Services & Education etc. in the past. %% While Nirupa is a disciplined, hardworking executive always on the go, on the one hand, there is a core of fun and warmth with laughter always ready to bubble up on the other. Equally, she is a doting mother and caring wife; and husband Kiran and son Aditya form very much her circle of comfort, one to which she is happy to return at the end of each day or each working trip. And when its time to relax, its movies and music that gets Nirupa going. %% The complete woman. Standing tall in a man’s world. %%