In a sign that De Beers is feeling more confident in its dealings with the United States, the company is getting its first-ever American representative.

While De Beers has long promoted its products through ad agency JWT, and De Beers LV (billed as a separate company) has two stores here, this marks the first American representative for the De Beers Group in the company’s 100-plus-year history.

Rosalind Kainyah, executive director of corporate communications for the Diamond Trading Company in London, will fill the position, which De Beers stressed would be “noncommercial” and not involved with advertising or sightholders.

Kainyah’s goals will include outreach to the U.S. government as well as “civil society and academia on De Beers’ social-investment programs in Africa, with particular emphasis on HIV/AIDS,” De Beers said in a statement.

Kainyah, raised in Ghana, joined the DTC in 2002 as legal counsel for corporate and commercial affairs.