Laurence Graff, a reputed English jeweler, is the founder of Graff Diamonds, which is a supplier of jewels and jewelry.  He is known as the King of Diamonds.

Early Life and Background

Laurence was born on 13 June, in the year 1938, to Jewish parents in Stepney, London, UK.

He did not complete his high school education as he left school at the age of fifteen in order to work as an apprentice jeweler.

Family Tree

Parents: Laurence was born to a Russian father, Harry Graff and a Romanian mother named Rebecca Segal. Laurence’s mother ran a tobacconist and newsagents while his father used to make suits off the commercial road.

Siblings:  Laurence has a younger brother named Raymond who was born in the year 1947.

Relationship and family:  Laurence tied the knot with Anne-Marie Graff in the year 1962. His wife is of French origin. The couple is blessed with three children.

Career Highlights

After leaving school, Laurence wanted to start his career as a jeweler but for the first few days, he did not get any opportunity which in the field of jewelry. His works included cleaning the bathrooms, scrubbing the floors and sometimes he had to run errands. Laurence left the job after a while and started working with another jeweler who provided him the scope to learn many things about handling jewelry. Laurence learned how to clean and repair jewelry, how to craft small pieces out of jewels. He completed the learning period quite early. During this time, the citizens of England were going through poor financial conditions. Therefore, they used to go for remodeling old jewelry rather than buying new ones.

Graff understood the financial condition and started learning how to give old pieces of jewelry a brand new look. Unfortunately, the jewelry shop went bankrupt after Graff completed his internship. Then, Laurence started selling his own jewelry designs to the jewelers all over England. Being motivated by a great amount of ambition and desire to become successful, Laurence launched his own jewelry shop.

He started to sign deals for polishing and repairing jewelry. Graff used to design and craft artistic jewelry which was inspired by the Victorian era jewelry, during his free times.  Eventually, his pieces and designs got popular across the whole country. Propelled by the dream to be successful, Laurence formed the Graff Diamonds Company in Hatton Garden in the year 1960. His business soon started to climb the ladder of success and he opened two more shops by 1962.

Laurence started to draw huge numbers of clients from all over the globe, especially from the Middle East. One of the notable achievements of Graff is that the Sultan of  Brunei Hassanal Bolkiah became his permanent client and a good friend. His other celebrity clients include Prince Turki bin Abdul Aziz, Oprah Winfrey, Larry Ellison, Elizabeth Taylor and Donald Trump.

Apart from the diamond company, Laurence’s expanded business empire also include real estate in the Mayfair district of London, a diamond mine outside Johannesburg, South Africa and a polished diamond trade business in Switzerland.  It is reported that he has an estimated net worth of $4.3 Billion.