The Jewellers Association of Australia (JAA) has been sent scrambling for new leadership following the shock departure on Friday of president Karen Denaro.
Denaro was elected president in November 2021 and, at the time, while the JAA made no announcement on its website, it is understood that she took over the role from Jo Tory in January 2022.
While having served only 10 months as president, Denaro joined the JAA’s board in January of 2021.
Denaro announced her sudden departure on Linkedin saying: “It is with a heavy heart I announce my decision to resign from my role as JAA President and my subsequent choice to remove myself from the Jewellers Association of Australia’s Board of Directors, effective immediately.”
She added: “I shall be issuing a press release on this, in due course.”
The JAA representative confirmed that the constitution requires that the vice-president becomes the de facto president in the event that a president unexpectedly resigns, until such a time as a new president is appointed by the board of directors.
This seems problematic given that the current vice-president is Joshua Sharp who is currently overseas and, according to his office, is not expected to return until January 2023.
A representative for the JAA confirmed the need for further direction from the board before any official announcement is made.
“[The JAA] doesn’t wish to make any further comment at this stage,” the spokesperson said.
At the time of publication there was no announcement on the JAA website about Denaro’s shock departure. The last ‘news post’ was dated 1 September 2022 announcing the resignation of its vice-president, Emily Crew and announcing a new director.
However, the new director cannot be identified because the link to the post has an error, and members have been unable to read the article for nearly six weeks.
The most recent ‘JAA news’ prior to the 1 September post was 20 months earlier in February 2021 announcing the resignation of board members George Proszkowiec and Karen Lindley who were replaced by Sharp (Ian Sharp Jewellery) and Denaro (Brilliamo Designer Jeweller).
As Jeweller understands, the current board consists of Joshua Sharp, Cameron Marks (Percy Marks), Jo Tory (Najo) and Ronnie Bauer (Klepner’s) and Dr Meredith Doig, believed to be the person named in the inaccessible article.
Denaro was unavailable for comment prior to publication.
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