About

Gemfields is focused on mining coloured gemstones in Africa, with its primary assets located in Zambia and Mozambique, exploration activities elsewhere in Africa and its primary listing on the JSE. Gemfields also owns the fine jewellery brand, Fabergé, as a champion for coloured gemstones. The industry which Gemfields operates in has unfortunately had a history of lack of transparency and unethical business practices. Gemfields is transforming the industry for the better and the legal department plays a critical role in supporting that transformation. This provides a wealth of cross-border work for the company’s legal team to deal with, led by group general counsel and company secretary, Toby Hewitt. Hewitt himself comes highly recommended by nominating sources, who described him as ‘an experienced, knowledgeable and very dynamic lawyer who oversees legal matters both at the company and its subsidiaries’, and provided some insight into the team’s achievements over the past couple of years. On the expansion of the team, Hewitt said: ‘The recruitment of other lawyers to assist me in the burgeoning legal workload of the Group has been the most important internal change over the past two years. Previously, I was effectively acting as the sole counsel in the organisation. The recruitment of a team in support has allowed me to be more strategic in my approach, increased the overall capacity of the legal department to get involved in new areas and has helped to contain external legal spend’. Now, the team has added significant legal talent into its ranks, allowing Hewitt to focus more on big-picture matters in support of the business. ‘Richard Pyke, the more senior of the two other lawyers, is very capable and soaks up much of the day-to-day work’, he explains. ‘Likewise, Natalie Phillips, my assistant, provides valuable support in the administration of the numerous domestic and international subsidiaries in the Group and the Group’s trademark portfolio. The newest member of the team, Amelia Thomson, is already showing great potential. We are a close-knit team with minimum formality in our everyday interactions’. Overall, Hewitt believes the team’s culture is ‘one of mutual respect, getting the job done with minimum fuss and empowerment to work autonomously on projects’.