Domingos Valbom

Domingos Valbom
General Manager, DebTech

For the last two years I have been the General Manager of DebTech, the technology division within Global Mining, reporting to the De Beers Technical Director.

Our offices are located in Crown mines, a suburb south of Johannesburg, in South Africa, adjacent to the De Beers corporate Headquarters.

All the facilities are available to create a fantastic environment to foster innovation and creativity as required by the type of work that we do. 

I have been with De Beers Group for over 22 years mostly in DebTech and its predecessors or the Group Technical Support function.

Working within the De Beers Family of Companies I always had the opportunity to be innovative and develop my ideas through to implementation, especially working in a Research and Development organisation.

My key achievement during this time was managing the 32 channel x-ray machine from being simply an idea to being effective X-ray based diamond sorter in action in the diamond industry.

This type of technology is critical to a diamond mine as it separates the diamonds from gravel at incredible throughputs. 

Imagine being part of an organisation that when you look in a jewellery shop anywhere in the world you can proudly say the equipment that you produce played a major role in extracting and identifying nearly half of the diamonds on display!

By entering the market place with its products and services DebTech expects to exploit economies of scale in a number of its product lines thus reducing its manufacturing and support costs which will also have benefits to the De Beers Family of Companies.

The expected revenues from the sale of these products will support DebTech’s objective of maintaining its leadership position diamond recovery technology by better supporting its R&D portfolio.  

Be it because of the product that it sells or the technology that I have had the privilege to work with or develop, De Beers has always provided me the opportunities to develop myself and ensure that I be the best that I can possibly be in my career.

The highlight of my career at De Beers must be the transformation of DebTech into a commercially astute organisation capable of delivering true value to the De Beers Family of Companies.

DebTech has over the years focused on delivering world diamond sorting technology to the De Beers family of companies and has operated as a corporate research and development function.

The change has been from this to a position where there is more active participation by the De Beers Family of Companies both in the decision making regarding our R&D portfolio and also the way that the portfolio is funded.

In addition there is also the opportunity to make available to the rest of the diamond industry some of the products previously only available internally.

I do not believe that you can be successful at work without ensuring that you are able to balance your home life with your work life. In my life this balance is made easier by my wife Alison and my kids Natasha, 13, and Robert, 11.

Whenever we can we take some family time off and our activities are by enlarge out in nature whether visiting game parks, particularly Kruger, or hiking in the Drakensberg mountains.

Apart from spending family time I do enjoy playing golf and doing a bit of running to keep fit and watching a good game of football live or on TV. Otherwise sitting on the sidelines watching under 13 or under 11 sports is really exciting.