Copenhagen— Pandora, the jewelry giant that redefined affordable luxury and disrupted the fine jewelry market with lab grown diamonds, is entering a new and potentially volatile chapter.
CEO Alexander Lacik, widely credited with reviving the company, will step down in March 2026 after seven years in charge. His successor is Berta de Pablos-Barbier, Pandora’s current chief marketing officer, a Spanish national who joined the brand last November after serving as president and CEO of LVMH’s champagne houses Moët & Chandon, Dom Perignon, and Mercier, as well as chief growth officer at Mars Wrigley. She will also become Pandora’s first female chief executive.
“Even though we are the largest [company] in our industry, Pandora still holds significant untapped potential,” she said in a company statement, promising to continue the company’s evolution into a “full jewelry brand.” But industry watchers are already asking: will she stay the course—or pivot Pandora into an even deeper commitment to lab grown diamonds, the brand’s most controversial move to date?
When he took over in 2019—Pandora’s sixth CEO in nine years—he said bluntly that the brand had “lost touch” with consumers. “This brand has lost clarity. People said, ‘I don’t really know what Pandora stands for anymore.’”
He repositioned the brand with heavy marketing investment, rebuilding relevance. The results: revenue up 45%, global workforce up from 24,000 to 37,000, and recognition from Danish business magazine Economic Weekly, which crowned him the country’s top CEO in 2024 under the headline: “Alexander Lacik—and All the Others.”
The Stakes for Pandora
Pandora is still the world’s largest jewelry company by volume—but scale isn’t the issue. The real question is whether Pablos-Barbier will lean harder into lab grown diamonds, a decision that has won sustainability plaudits but also alienated parts of the trade.
For Pandora, the debate is existential. Can a brand built on mass-market charms and affordability reinvent itself as a leader in the diamond space? Or will the bet on lab grown prove to be its boldest gamble yet?
As Lacik himself once put it: “Successful brands that live over time strike a human truth. People want to celebrate family, milestones, aspirations. As long as you do this authentically, you’ll do well.”
Authenticity, however, now faces a new test—because the next chapter of Pandora may hinge not on charms or silver bracelets, but on whether consumers accept lab grown diamonds as the future of jewelry.
👉 Want to understand why lab grown diamonds are overtaking natural stones? Dive into our Lab Grown Diamonds guide.
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