De Beers Company

After Steven Press visited our class last week, I became interested in researching the De Beers company further.   On their website, it says "We have five values – be passionate, pull together, build trust, show we care, and shape the future. They were developed by our employees in 2006 and remain the values we live by today." On the history page there is much explanation of Cecil Rhodes and of De Beers and other white men, but there is no mention of the native Namibian or South African people. On the board of directors there are 11 people and of those 11, 0 are women. 4/11 are black. There is a gender diversity page on the website that discusses gender diversity "We are committed to enabling an inclusive culture where diversity of all forms is highly valued We want to attract, retain and develop the best people. By removing barriers and being inclusive, we will better engage and develop the brilliant talent we need to succeed in an ever-changing world. Developing and empowering women in our business and our producer country communities is not only the right thing to do, it’s a smart thing to do."  I would like to see the company talk the talk a bit less and walk the walk a bit more by having more women in high positions of power.  Also the diversity and inclusion page only discusses gender and gender is far from the only factor influencing diversity. It's really interesting to me that the company has such a monopoly over both the diamonds as a resource and the countries economies.  I'm fascinated by the relationship between the African countries and the De Beers company, how the relationship started out in power in-balance over 2 hundred years ago and never changed. On the one hand, Namibia's economy benefits from the money De Beers rakes in, but on the other it makes the country reliant on an outside power to sustain and succeed.  It would be cool to have the opportunity to speak to an employee at De Beers to try to learn more about how genuine their efforts are in environmental conservation and in diversity. It's one thing to write about it on their website, but another altogether to act on it in real life. 

Posted by Ellie Chen on March 4th, 2018