Nicky Oppenheimer

Ranked first South African billionaire from Forbes in 2011 with a fortune of $ 7 billion, Nicky Oppenheimer is the President of the diamond company "De Beers" and Anglo American, the mining company founded by his grandfather, Ernest Oppenheimer.

Graduated in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, Nicky Oppenheimer in 1968 worked in London at the Anglo American Corporation, a mining company founded in 1917 by his father. He is charge of diamonds and gold’s branch. In 1975, back to Johannesburg, he joined De Beers Company specialized in the extraction and processing of diamonds, which Anglo American is the largest shareholder, and which he was named as director in 1978.


In 1984 he was appointed as vice president of Central Selling Organization, and then renamed Diamond Trading Company. When he headed “De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd” in January 1998, the group is met many difficulties due to the end of the monopoly on the diamond market held by De Beers for many decades.

Nicky Oppenheimer decides to expand the supply at retail, in order to strengthen the company weakened by the arrival of Russian and Australian on the diamond market. Following an alliance with LVMH, De Beers opened a shop at Lafayette Center in Paris. It will be the first in a series of great jewelry.

In 2003, he received a PHD honoris causa in technology by the Technikon Witwatersrand in South Africa.

De Beers, 45% owned by Anglo American, is the world’s largest producer of stones.