Before entering the jewellery industry in his early 30s, Mr Coin had an accomplished career as a hotelier, much of it spent in Guernsey after he came to the island at the age of 18 to work.
His age proved no barrier to his ambition, and a few years after arriving he was named general manager of the Duke of Richmond Hotel at just 24.
‘When I came to Guernsey, I was young but highly experienced because I did catering school in Italy and in Switzerland, at the Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne,’ he said.
‘It’s the real power of wanting to achieve something in life. I always had it in my DNA.’
But around 10 years later, he took his career in a dramatically different direction, leaving both the hotel industry and Guernsey.
‘I fell in love after going to a jewellery fair back in Italy,’ he said.
‘The work fascinated me. I knew nothing about jewellery, but I had a creativity in mind, so I wanted to try. And being Italian, fashion is in our DNA, whether clothes or jewellery or shoes.
‘The fact that this work could take me to different countries, to meet different cultures and different people, after living on the island for almost 15 years, affected me a lot. It seemed very exciting to me, so I decided to change my life.’
Mr Coin returned to Italy, where he trained and worked for several years making luxury jewellery for other Italian brands to hone his craft. In 1996 he took the leap and launched his own namesake brand, which went on to become a leading name in the industry.
‘We started from zero, and today we are recognised as one of the most important jewellery brands in Italy and we sell in 64 countries all over the world,’ he said.
Those efforts culminated this year in the Cavaliere del Lavoro.
‘It’s the highest honour you can ever receive as an Italian citizen,’ said Mr Coin.
‘It made me very proud. I’ve worked all my life, I’m still working, and this is truly the best thing that’s happened in my life. I didn’t expect to receive it, but I’m very proud that I got it.’
The honour recognises Italian entrepreneurs and business leaders for significant contributions to the economy, technological innovation or social responsibility. Mr Coin received it for his long-term work against the trade in ‘blood diamonds’: diamonds mined in conflict zones, often at extreme human cost, with the profits used to fund wars.
‘The way I got this award is because we are extremely ethical,’ he said.
‘We have a corporate social responsibility to avoid buying blood diamonds. So, with other friends, I created the World Diamond Council, and we partnered with the United Nations to create the Kimberley Process.’
The Kimberley Process is an international certification system that keeps blood diamonds out of legitimate supply chains by certifying rough diamonds at the point of extraction to confirm their legal origins.
Asked where his strong sense of ethics came from, Mr Coin looked back to his time in Guernsey.
‘It all started in Guernsey,’ he said. ‘Between 18 and 24 is when you become a man. So I grew up like a Guernsey man, an English man. And the British way – to be kind, polite, ethical, correct – I think is the best in the world.
‘And growing up as a young man in a place where there is only a small number of people made it even more important to be credible as a person. I learned what was right and what was wrong. I learned how to behave in life, how to be a correct person.
‘I would like to say a big thank you to Guernsey for helping me to grow up properly. I had a beautiful life in Guernsey because you were all very kind to me. I felt at home in Guernsey, believe it or not. I met a lot of very important people, some very rich people and also some very normal people, and I learned from all of them.’
Despite the place the island still holds in his heart, Mr Coin has not been back since leaving to pursue his jewellery career more than 40 years ago, but he hopes to change that soon.
‘Somehow or another, work took me everywhere in the world except back to Guernsey,’ he said.
‘But I will come back. I always wanted to come back. I want to see old friends again.’