Nick Paspaley, son of the company's founder Nicholas Paspaley, graduated in economics from the University of Sydney and joined the Paspaley Pearling Company in 1969. Working with his father, he pioneered the modern cultivation techniques that realised the founder's goal of cultured South Sea pearls to rival the finest natural ones, and he has led the business since his father's death in 1984.
In 1989 he merged the Kuri Bay and Port Essington pearling projects, originally run separately by the Kuribayashi family and by Paspaley, under the Paspaley Pearling Company. Today the company operates about twenty pearl farms along Australia's north-western coast and supplies houses including Tiffany & Co., Cartier and Harry Winston as well as its own boutiques; in 1992 a strand of 23 Paspaley pearls sold at Sotheby's New York for US$2.3 million, then a record for cultured pearls.
He was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia in 1999 for services to Australia's export industry, helped found the South Sea Pearl Consortium to protect the reputation of South Sea pearls, and sits on the board of CIBJO, the World Jewellery Confederation. He is chairman of the Paspaley Group of Companies, whose interests range from pearling and marine engineering to aviation, property, pastoral holdings and Bunnamagoo Wines.