Yoram Dvash takes the chair at the company that sells 30% of Debswana
Botswana's state rough trader has named the former World Federation of Diamond Bourses president as board chairman, two months after his term there ended. The seat he replaced had been empty since November.
By The Diamonds Desk
What changed
Okavango Diamond Company has appointed Yoram Dvash chairman of its board, reported 20 August 2026. He succeeds Gape Kaboyakgosi, who left in November after five years, meaning Botswana's state-owned rough trading arm has run without a permanent board chairman for most of a year.
What it means
- The interesting part is who Botswana hired rather than what he was hired to do. Okavango's problem is not that it lacks rough, it is that it has a rising share of a shrinking market and has to sell into it without De Beers' book.
- Appointing a chairman whose career is bourse politics, in Ramat Gan and then at the federation, is a decision to solve that through the trading centres rather than through the mining side. Watch where the tenders go next.
- A Dubai arrangement already exists, Israel is the chairman's own ground, and the 40% step in this contract arrives well before anyone expects the natural rough market to have recovered.
Key figures
| of Debswana output, years 1–5 | 30% |
|---|---|
| of Debswana output, years 6–10 | 40% |
| when the previous chairman left, after five yearsNov | |
| Dvash's first year as WFDB president | 2020 |
Source: Okavango Diamond Company
A chair filled after nine months
Dvash stepped down as president of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses two months ago, having held the office since 2020, and he was previously chairman of both the Israel Diamond Institute and the Israel Diamond Exchange. He said he looks forward to "working with the board, management and the government of Botswana."
The seat carries more rough than the announcement suggests. Under the sales agreement signed with De Beers in February 2025, Okavango receives 30% of Debswana's production for the first five years of the ten-year term, rising to 40% for the second five, with a possible further extension moving the split to 50-50.
Debswana is the joint venture between De Beers and the government of Botswana that mines the country's diamonds, and Botswana is the largest producer of rough by value in the world. The chairman of Okavango's board therefore sits above the disposal of nearly a third of that output, sold outside the De Beers channel.
The share the seat governs · ODC's allocation of Debswana rough, %
Source: Okavango Diamond Company
The rough behind the seat
This paper has covered Dvash twice before in different chairs. On 15 July it reported his succession at the World Federation of Diamond Bourses by Mehul Shah, after Dvash completed the maximum two consecutive three-year terms.
On 1 August it reported that Okavango had signed a tender arrangement with the Dubai Diamond Exchange, part of that centre's year of buying the pieces it lacked. The appointment joins those two threads: the man who ran the bourse federation now chairs the state seller that has just opened a Dubai tender window.
| Figure | |
|---|---|
| Years 1–5 Of The Term | 30% |
| Years 6–10 Of The Term | 40% |
| Five-Year Extension, If Triggered | 50% |
Read from the ten-year sales agreement signed with De Beers in February 2025. The extension is conditional on criteria the parties have not published. The earlier agreement in principle, announced in July 2023, had projected ODC reaching 50% by the final year of the base term; the signed document does not. Carat Capital graphics desk.
What the announcement does not carry
What the appointment does not come with is a number, and that is worth saying plainly. Okavango published no revenue figure, no tender calendar and no strategic target alongside the announcement, and the company does not report publicly on the cadence a listed miner would.
The verifiable content of the news is the name, the date, the vacancy it fills and the tonnage the seat governs. Everything else being written about it this weekend is inference.
The story so far
Go deeper
Corrections
Correction, 23 August 2026: an earlier version of this article said Dvash remains chairman of both the Israel Diamond Institute and the Israel Diamond Exchange. He does not. The Rapaport report this article cites says he was previously chairman of both, and the record agrees: Arnon Juwal was elected to the institute's chair in 2021, and the exchange has had at least two presidents since. The error was this desk's paraphrase of a correctly cited source, not the source's. Correct as published: the appointment itself, the succession from Gape Kaboyakgosi, the World Federation of Diamond Bourses presidency from 2020, and the two months between his stepping down there and this seat.
Method
Read from the ten-year sales agreement signed with De Beers in February 2025. The extension is conditional on criteria the parties have not published. The earlier agreement in principle, announced in July 2023, had projected ODC reaching 50% by the final year of the base term; the signed document does not.