With a background as unique as the jewelry he designs, including time at McKinsey & Company, Harvard Business School, and De Beers Louis Vuitton, Zameer Kassam has emerged as one of the global jewelry industry’s most innovative thinkers and artists. He is the Founder and CEO of Zameer Kassam Fine Jewelry, which he launched in 2011. Through every iteration of his career, one thing has remained constant: his passion for storytelling.
Zameer’s path to fine jewelry began in his youth, while working at his family’s jewelry boutique in Canada. At an early age, he gained an appreciation for the important milestones people would celebrate with jewelry, but disliked the transactional nature of the retail industry. After completing his undergraduate degree, Zameer began a corporate career at McKinsey & Company, where he first learned the importance of storytelling and communication. His next career move was to MTV Networks International, where he experienced first-hand the power of traditional media in amplifying and disseminating a message. After obtaining his MBA at Harvard Business School, he reentered the fine jewelry industry as the Head of Bridal & Classics at De Beers Diamond Jewelers, a joint venture between De Beers Group and Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy (LVMH). While working with a group of exceptional designers, he became entrenched in jewelry design, but imagined how powerful a design could be if it actually told a meaningful and personal story. And in this moment, the ethos of Zameer Kassam Fine Jewelry was born. To date, Zameer has told more than 2000 love stories through pieces of fine jewelry.
Zameer has guest lectured at Harvard Business School—where he endowed a Fellowship for Entrepreneurship—Stanford Graduate School of Management, Parsons the New School and others. During his tenure at Harvard, Zameer researched sustainability and economic beneficiation in the diamond mining industry, specifically focusing on Botswana, the worlds leading producer of gem-quality diamonds. He has presented globally, from the World Economic Forum to Engage, the world‘s leading wedding conference. In 2020, Zameer became a Board Advisor to the Association of Foreign Correspondents. Zameer has been featured in the New York Times, VOGUE (USA, India, Japan, Germany, and United Kingdom), CNBC, Forbes, INC, Entrepreneur, CNN, New York Post, among others. In 2020, he built a school in rural India in partnership with education NGO Yuva Unstoppable, where he is also a Board Ambassador. In the fall of 2020, Harvard Business School published “Zameer Kassam Fine Jewelry: Engaging Clients,” a case study profiling his unique business model and how it was modified during the worldwide pandemic. The case is currently being taught to MBA students, Executive Education participants, and members of the Young Presidents Organization, among others. Zameer is a Friend of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, was profiled on The Secret Lives of the Super Rich, and is currently working on a BBC documentary series.