homas Faerber and Ronny Totah are clear about what they want for GemGenève. The event they organise is the product of their 40-plus years of experience as exhibitors at multiple trade fairs, where they frequently represented other exhibitors’ interests and came away with valuable lessons about what professionals really want.

This first-hand knowledge has, without a doubt, contributed to GemGenève’s success. Since its inaugural edition in 2018, the fair – held at Palexpo in Geneva – has become a major industry event. The next edition, scheduled for May 9 to 12, 2024, is already fully subscribed with more than 200 exhibitors, including some 190 professional gem and jewellery dealers from around the globe. A year earlier, the fair surpassed expectations with over 6,000 visitors. We met the two men behind it all.

Thomas Faerber and Ronny Totah, co-founders of GemGenève

Europa Star Jewellery: Both your names are now closely associated with GemGenève, but when did you first meet?

Thomas Faerber: I remember meeting Ronny in the late 1970s when he was working Quai du Mont-Blanc for Theodore Horovitz, who was quite a celebrity. Geneva’s “doyen” of gem dealers!

Ronny Totah: I’d joined my father who was the Horovitz brothers’ business associate. It’s true, Teddy Horovitz was a fountain of knowledge, more akin to a nineteenth-century mind. He was a universal thinker with an impressive memory. He had his own, unconventional view of our profession.

Thomas Faerber: I had an office in Zurich and would travel around Switzerland selling small diamonds to local jewellers. There was such an aura around Teddy Horovitz, it was a long time before I plucked up the courage to knock on his door. When finally I did, I was warmly received by an admirable gentleman who saw a young man starting out… only I was a long way from having the kind of stones his international clientele required!

Both of you come from a long line of jewellers. Did you learn on the job?

Thomas Faerber: Yes. My grandfather was a jeweller in Cologne which is where my father, a salesman for a jewellery firm, met his daughter – my mother. I was still a teenager when my father died but even so I remember him coming home with beautiful gemstones. It was what I wanted to do from an early age but I was too young to take over the family business, which was sold and still exists today. Having completed my apprenticeship in Amsterdam, I worked as a diamond cutter in Antwerp, then spent some time in London before joining my mentor, Jean Rosenthal, one of the great gemstone dealers, in Paris.

Ronny Totah: I was destined to work with stones but not the precious kind, given that I studied civil engineering in Lausanne! After graduating I thought I would help out at the family firm, which was in a delicate situation following a theft. I was completely won over by this unique way of doing business, of putting customer service and trust before any considerations of profit – which is still the case today and hopefully for generations to come. When I sold my first gems, my one concern was that I might have overcharged my customer!

Ida Faerber, Director Faerber-Collection Geneva & Treasure Hunter Thomas Faerber S.A

In the almost 50 years you’ve known each other, I imagine the profession has changed.

Thomas Faerber: Of course it’s very different now. The market was far less international. I remember the culture shock the first time I travelled to New York in the late 1960s and saw how casual the dealers were, whereas we Europeans were always smartly dressed.

Ronny Totah: I could spend hours answering that question. I agree it was a more intimate, less international environment. You would go to a sale like you would go to the opera, the auctioneers put on such a show. You can imagine how exciting that was for me, a young man taking my first steps in the business. You don’t get that any more, not with online auctions. There’s hardly anyone in the salesroom now, it’s lost its charm.

For decades, you both exhibited with your respective companies at several trade fairs, starting with Basel. Then in 2018 you launched GemGenève. How and why did you go from exhibitor to organiser?

Ronny Totah: As exhibitors, communicating with organisers, whoever they were, was frequently difficult. Thomas and I often found ourselves spontaneously representing the other exhibitors’ interests vis-à-vis management. Finally, after facing so much incomprehension for so long, we each decided we needed to take matters in hand. We were both thinking along the same lines and got together to discuss the idea. It didn’t come naturally. I was already having a hard time organising my own office so an entire fair, well, you can imagine! (laughs). I’m not sure, at that moment, that we fully grasped what we were getting ourselves into…

Thomas Faerber: One key factor was the arrogance of the organisers of the Basel fair, prior to its demise. It was such a shame, because it was a wonderful event back when it was still in competent hands and prepared to listen to exhibitors. GemGenève arose out of decades of reflection and experience, of knowing what was truly important to exhibitors and couldn’t be ignored.

Your story reminds me of the subcontractors who had already left Basel for EPHJ – which also takes place, very successfully, at Palexpo – and who were also led by two exhibitors, André Colard and Olivier Saenger. There’s a strong similarity between your situation and theirs.

Ronny Totah: I imagine the spark must have been the same. Ultimately, organisers must understand that each exhibitor has slightly different needs. Sometimes it comes down to nuances. One booth needs white lighting, another needs yellowish lighting whereas another needs dimmer lighting. As experts and exhibitors ourselves, we understand the importance of lighting to show the stones at their best and we know there is no such thing as one size fits all. A professional trade fair organiser might not understand this, because this isn’t their environment and they haven’t had that experience. We’ve been in those situations and certainly don’t want to reproduce them.

Thomas Faerber: One fundamental difference is that many other organisers are there mostly to make a profit. Of course we have to be in the black but it’s not our main priority. We meet the requirements of exhibitors who, incidentally, go through a selection process. There is a long waiting list. And so ultimately we learned how to organise a trade fair!

Ronny Totah: It was a gradual learning curve. The key to the fair’s success has been to not put profit first. Without the obligation to maximise profit, we’re a lot more relaxed when designing the layout, because we don’t have to think in terms of the bottom line. For example, we might suddenly decide to reduce the number of booths and create a seating area that will bring more life to a particular zone. If we simply looked at the numbers, there wouldn’t be so many areas for sitting and relaxing, but that’s what makes the atmosphere of the event.

What would you say GemGenève’s main objectives are?

Thomas Faerber: Firstly, to bring the profession together, whether dealers in pearls, diamonds, gemstones, modern or antique jewellery. Essentially we provide a service and we’re enthusiastic about doing so. At the same time, we aim to educate and inform the wider public, for example through exhibitions such as The Pearl Odyssey.

Ronny Totah: We want exhibitors and visitors to come to the fair and feel they are in their comfort zone. Our aim is for GemGenève to be a date in professionals’ diary. For the general public, we want it to become part of the Geneva scene and, specifically, inspire young people in their future careers. From enameller to stone-setter, there are so many wonderful professions to discover. We want to convince young people and their parents that these are attractive career options and perhaps help change the image they have of them.

Thomas Faerber: It’s not an easy profession, far from it, but it is a wonderful one. From the age of fifteen right up to today, I’ve never wanted to do anything else!

Let’s not forget your role as an incubator for up-and-coming talent in the jewellery world. Each edition hosts new faces from around the world.

Ronny Totah: We were young once, too and needed a helping hand to make our way in the business. Earlier on in the conversation, Thomas mentioned the great impression his encounter with Teddy Horovitz made; something he hasn’t forgotten to this day, almost 50 years later. That says a lot. A career in jewellery is a succession of eureka moments. Because people supported us back in the day, we wanted to help new generations by offering them an international stage. It’s wonderful to see talent blossom.

Thomas Faerber: Viewed from the outside, this might come across as a secretive profession, when in reality people are extremely welcoming. We want to encourage new talent to go ahead and “dare”.

Why limit booth size? Wouldn’t a more ambitious floorplan bring in the big-name brands?

Thomas Faerber: We deliberately limit booth size to 60 square metres because we want GemGenève to remain an event for dealers. The big brands are our clients, not our exhibitors. As wholesalers, we do a different job. But they all come to the fair as visitors.

Ronny Totah: These are two parallel worlds. I don’t think it’s possible for everyone to cohabit within the same fair and benefit from it. You have to decide who you are targeting. The Basel fair tried to bring suppliers and brands under one roof and, beyond the management issues already mentioned, I don’t think that formula could have kept going much longer. The budget for taking part in GemGenève comes out of exhibitors’ sales divisions, which probably isn’t the case for the big brands.

Thomas Faerber: As an aside, I’d like to quote one of my clients, a major retailer, who paid me the best possible compliment when he said the fair was something they absolutely wouldn’t miss. That, for us, is success.

So successful, in fact, that there are now two editions a year.

Ronny Totah: That’s not set in stone. Everything is based on our exhibitors’ needs. We’re wedding planners, we adapt. Not forgetting that we also have our own businesses to run, year-round!

Thomas Faerber: For as long as there is demand for a second fair in November, we will continue to hold one, but the main event is in May. The May exhibitors have no obligation to come back in November and those who come for the first time in November aren’t guaranteed a spot in May.

Looking ahead, would you consider extending the fair to include more exhibitors? And will you roll out the concept internationally, with GemDubai, GemLondon or GemNewYork, for example?

Ronny Totah: We wouldn’t rule out organising editions elsewhere but the location would have to meet all our requirements in terms of concept, quality, booths, security and so on. As for the Geneva fair, we prefer not to increase the size too much as we would lose in exhibition quality and interaction.

Faerber-Collection – Antique diamond kokochnik necklace and tiara, english, circa 1890. Photo: ©Katharina Faerber Thomas Faerber S.A

Thomas Faerber: We know everything here, from security to insurance, and we have excellent relations with Palexpo. We’re at home in Geneva, it’s where we live and work. In another country, as newcomers it would be hard for us to have control over these various parameters.

Ronny Totah: We receive a lot of requests and feedback from exhibitors to this effect, but no actual, planned concept we could build on.

Thomas Faerber: Still, never say never! If in 2016 you’d told me we would become trade fair organisers, I wouldn’t have believed you, yet on December 26, 2017 we signed the contract and the first GemGenève opened five months later. As for the future, both Ronny’s children and mine are already closely involved with the fair.

Ronny Totah: They can see the spirit Thomas and I have given it. They understand that GemGenève is successful not because we are supermen or because we had this amazing idea – there were other fairs before us – but that it all comes down to a mindset. The good news is, they aren’t likely to forget this!