Leon Popov was born in Riga, Latvia. He studied art and design in the Academy of Fine Arts and practiced jewelry skills at the century-old Riga Jewelry Factory, working side-by-side with renowned designers, winners of the De Beers Diamond Awards and experienced craftsmen.
In 1981, at the age of 23, he immigrated to Israel and in his first weeks in the country already worked as a jeweler at NDC. After couple of years there he moved to Jerusalem jewelry manufacturer and in 1986 started his own jewelry design workshop in Ramat Gan, close to the Diamond Exchange.
At the beginning he mostly worked with private customers, but as his reputation spread around, started to design models for jewelry manufacturers, shops and merchants. Business grew steadily and in 1991 he formed a company, called Esquisse Ltd. (Esquisse [es-k'iz] means sketch, preliminary drawing in French and Russian) and devoted most of his time to design and modeling. Leon's designs were featured twice in the De Beers Diamond Competition. His Coral Reef Collection was chosen by the organizers of Novajoya Design Pavilion in Barcelona to represent Israel in 1998.
Since 1996 Leon regularly presents his original designs at Basel Jewelry & Watch Fair, where he acquired customers from all over the world. Leon Popov's creations are sold to large-scale retailers, shops and private individuals in USA, France, Italy, Japan, Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Costa-Rica, Uruguay, Spain, Russia, Australia, etc. Several collections were shown at jewelry exhibitions in Las Vegas, Osaka and Barcelona. A sapphire and diamond ring from Leon's Eiffel Collection was prominently featured in the US edition of Elle magazine in September 1998.