Karen Lindley AM
Portrait of Karen Lindley AM
some background
Karen Lindley is a long standing and concientous member of the Australian Jewellery Industry and perhaps importantly a great supporter of the Australian Opal Industry. Always a business women, it was in the mid 1970’s that Karen first joined the company Australian Opal Distributors as the Personal Assistant to the then owner Tony Hammond.
As often happens in the Opal Industry, Karen “fell in love with Opal”. This love of Australias National Gemstone led Karen to take over the Australian Opal Distributors business and become the first female gemmologist to wholsale Australia’s Precious Black opal throughout Asia, and then worldwide.
In the Queens Birthday honours of June 2021 was awarded as a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for significant services to the Jewellery industry and social welfare initiatives.
Opal and jewellery industry involvement
Karen has been a long time advocate and participant in the Jewellery Industry in Australia. From the beginning of Karen’s business dealing when Karen took Australian Precious Opal to Thailand. Karen was the first dealer setting up an office in Bankok and exibiting in the largest coloured stone market promotions in Bangkok, where the opal market continues to prosper. As previously mentioned, Karen was the first women to take wholsale precious opal marketing to the worldwide market. Inspiring many more women opal people to follow.
Karen’s involvement in the opal Industry Associations is marked by her involvement in the Australian Gem Industry Association (AGIA) as perhaps the only significant business women as a director on the board, rising to the Chair in the 1990’s . When the AGIA morphed into the Opal Sector Council of the Jewellers Association of Australia, (JAA) Karen was voted onto the JAA federal board, a position which she maintained for over 20 years.
Karens involvement in the industry also included her involvement in developement of the of the Opal Nomenclature as published by the Gemmological Association of Australia in 1997. Also involved as a memeber of the Jewellery and Allied Trades Valuers Council ( Registered Member N308) Karen gave great support to the assessment of precious opals, and expertise in problem and dispute resolution services involving opal. A staunch supporter of using gemmological and valuation knowledge for the correct and appropriate description and value of precious opal.
social welfare
Perhaps not associated with the jewellery Industry, and maybe even more important to community is Karens untiring involvement in our Social Welfare system in NSW. As already mentioned, Karen was awarded the Order of Australia (AM) for her work in this area and more recently serving on the NSW government board in the justice department. Karen is also a Director of SAMSN, Survivors and Mates Support Network. You can read more about this link to an article about Karen Lindley as published in Jewellery World Magazine here:
