Retailer Hall of Fame 2024: Craig and Judd Rottenberg

Editor’s Note: This story first appeared in the print edition of the 2024 Retailer Hall of Fame. Click here to see the full issue.

From studying marketing to banking on Wall Street, brothers Craig and Judd Rottenberg of Long’s Jewelers didn’t appear to be on the path to taking over their father’s jewelry business, but ultimately their outside experience made them perfect for the job.

With a history dating back to the 1870s, New England-based Long’s Jewelers is approaching its 150th anniversary, led by two brothers who are partners in the business.

Craig Rottenberg is president; Judd Rottenberg is principal. 

Born into a jewelry family, the only children of longtime jeweler Robert “Bob” Rottenberg, it might appear they were destined to take the helm, the usual way of family businesses.

But it didn’t happen (immediately, that is.) With support from their father, each took his own path and, in his own time, circled back to Long’s, returning with an array of experience in fields spanning marketing, business, sales, and finance.

With personalities that blend naturally and an established respect for the jewelry industry, Judd and Craig—the first pair of brothers inducted into National Jeweler’s Retailer Hall of Fame together—have a sort of divide-and-conquer approach to bettering the stores they grew up working in.

The Rottenberg Brothers
Judd, the eldest of the two, studied business and marketing at Syracuse University. 

Following graduation, he had a few offers for jobs in his field, but nothing stood out.

Bob asked if he’d accompany him to a jewelry trade show in New York to see if it was of interest, and he obliged. 

“There was a spark,” Judd says. “There was something there for me that was very exciting and very interesting to me.”

Soon after, he headed to California, where he earned his graduate gemology degree from the Gemological Institute of America. 

A job in New York with M. Fabrikant & Sons, which was then one of the largest diamond companies in the world, followed.

“I had every intention of coming back [to Long’s], but it was a stepping stone for my education,” he says of his time at the diamond company.

It’s now been about 30 years since Judd returned to Long’s.

Craig took a different route. 

After earning his bachelor’s in economics from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, he worked as an investment banker on Wall Street. After about five years, Craig headed back to Boston in search of something more entrepreneurial. 

There, he helped start a tech company and went back to school, earning his MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. 

He returned to the tech startup world, where he was involved with a business that helped major retailers like Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s, and Gap Inc., use technology in decision making.

“That’s where I rediscovered my love of retail and specifically how businesses were changing and growing, whether using technology or just evolving over time,” he says.

“Long’s had been growing over the last few decades that we’d owned it [and] it needed more business help. At that point in my career, it made sense to come back, and I joined the family business on the business side.”

A scene many children raised in the jewelry industry can relate to, Craig and Judd both recall working in the stores as teenagers, jumping in to help at Christmas or in the summer. 

Their natural interests at the time foreshadowed the roles they would take on at Long’s later in life.

“Judd was always the better salesman, no question,” says Craig, “and I ended up helping out in the corporate office, even at a young age, which then became our paths later on.”

The History of Long’s
While the store has been in the Rottenberg family since the 1990s, its history extends back more than a century. 

Silversmith Thomas Long first opened his namesake store in Boston in 1878.

While there’s a period of the store’s existence that’s lost to history, the company eventually ended up in the hands of Montreal-based Henry Birks & Sons Ltd., alongside other storied American jewelers like Shreve, Crump & Low, J.E. Caldwell & Co., and C.D. Peacock. 

Around 40 years ago, Birks ran into some financial trouble and that is when Bob bought Long’s Jewelers. 

Bob had been working for Ross Jewelers in Lynn, Massachusetts, a store his father, Hyman Rottenberg, opened in 1962.

Bob (also a National Jeweler Retailer Hall of Fame inductee, class of 2010) expanded the business from a single store in Lynn, a Boston suburb, to seven stores across the area.

Ross Jewelers and Long’s Jewelers coexisted for a time, but the family eventually consolidated, converting some Ross stores to Long’s while closing underperforming locations.

The Mall Exit   
Modern-day Long’s Jewelers, which now has six freestanding stores, started, like so many businesses in the ‘70s and ‘80s, as a mall jewelry store. 

During the holiday season, then-teenagers Craig and Judd would sell best friend charms or Italian horns.

“Every once in a while, we’d get lucky and sell a chain with that, or maybe a watch,” Judd recalls.

Its four current suburban stores, located in Burlington, Braintree, and Peabody, Massachusetts, and Nashua, New Hampshire, now sit within a few hundred yards of the malls they once occupied. 

Though the distance is short, the transition took more than 20 years. 

“Part of our evolution has been going from a mall jeweler to being a company with larger, freestanding or lifestyle center stores that have more of an experience offering and are able to cover all the different categories—engagement and wedding rings, watches, estate jewelry, fashion jewelry, high-end jewelry, service and all that we weren’t able to do when we were a mall jeweler,” says Craig.

Once the malls began catering to a younger demographic, it was time for the Rottenbergs to take their fine jewelry operation elsewhere.

In 1999, they moved a Long’s Jewelers store out of a mall for the first time, setting the company on a new path.

“It was so scary,” Craig laughs, “but we survived.”

He said they all worried that without the mall traffic, no one would find them or come in, which ended up being a nonissue.

Just last fall, the company left its last mall.

Judd says the transition out of the mall space, “taught us a lot about who we are and who we were going to become.”

Store openings continue to be milestone markers for Long’s Jewelers.

“Every time we do a store, it’s such a labor of love for us,” Craig says.

They’re particularly proud of the two additional stores on Newbury Street in Boston—one a Rolex boutique and the other dedicated to Patek Philippe. 

Long’s Jewelers has been in the Rolex business almost 20 years. Its Boston boutique opened in 2021.

“There are some companies in our industry that I know have been in [with Rolex] for generations, where, while we’re certainly veterans at this point, it was during our tenure that it launched. It’s a partnership that has really thrived. Same with Patek Philippe; we just launched with them this year,” says Craig.

No Pressure
The brothers are proud of the company’s long history, attributing its early wins to their father’s entrepreneurial spirit—Bob turned one store into a chain of stores, and even acquired a second chain. 

“He’s very much the driving engine, the visionary, the bootstrap-to-build-a-business kind of guy,” Craig says.  

Despite Bob’s ambition and drive to grow the business, both Craig and Judd say they never felt pressured into working at Long’s.  

Judd says, “He was never in the back of our minds telling us to come into the business. He never pushed.” 

   
Craig agrees, remembering Bob saying that they should come only if the business called them.

“For Judd, I think the call was pretty early, and for me, it took 10 years before I felt it,” says Craig. “It was always [clear that] we were welcome, but it was never an expectation.”

Judd remembers thinking that if he did start working at Long’s, he wanted to have something to offer.

“I did not want to be an SOB, which in our world stands for ‘son of Bob’ or ‘son of the boss,’” he says.

“When I came back, I started at the bottom. I wasn’t doing anything other than cutting my teeth in the business, working my way up, and learning the sales part of it. That’s really where my focus was.”

Judd and Craig have been around enough family businesses to know the no-pressure approach isn’t universal, and they don’t take their father’s grace for granted.

“[Bob] allowed us to be who we were, and here we are. It was the right path because it was right for us, individually,” says Judd.

That’s what makes them special, he adds. 

“We’re here because we want to be here.”

Building Out the Team
Craig and Judd, who’ve now been in the business 19 years and 30 years, respectively, work in tandem.  

“Each of us focusing on different parts led to continued growth,” Craig says. 

Judd goes where his personality shines, spending most of his time on the sales floor. 

“I love to talk to people. I’m curious, I love to learn, and I love to make connections,” he says. 

For Craig, it’s about continuing to piece together puzzle, finding ways to be both present and forward-thinking while focusing on growth. 

“I think one of the reasons we’ve been successful is, we’re much more focused on three years, five years, 10 years from now than this year by itself,” he says. 

“When you’re living quarter to quarter, or living just for this year, you’re making short-term choices. For me, it’s about finding the balance of what we need to do to have a successful business today but then doing the right things to make sure we continue making it better and better.” 

Judd says it was a big moment in the store’s history when Craig came on board in 2005. 

“If you look back at any company, at its paradigm shifts, at the moments when things started to happen differently, there was a piece—Craig was ours—that put the engine in motion in a different way,” he says. 

In the two decades since Craig joined the business, Long’s’ top-line sales have increased fivefold. 

“Our father had been very entrepreneurial and put the train in motion in a certain way, but we needed a different kind of gas, a different level of expertise and push,” Judd says. 

Now with a head of steam, the brothers find themselves in the same place their father once was—they have a growing business and need help to manage it. 

At this point in the life of the company, they say it’s about getting the right team in place and establishing a culture in which that team can thrive.  

In the last year and a half, they’ve added a head of marketing, a director of stores, and even created some new positions to solidify the team.

“We’re in such a good position, but as we look ahead to how we’re going to keep up this really fast growth, we have to keep shoring up with people from top to bottom,” says Craig.

They’re also refining the training process to onboard future employees more easily.

There were about 50 employees when Craig joined the company, and now there are more than 180.

The trick, he says, is keeping the “family feel,” adding, “The special DNA that got us here, we have to make sure that continues.” 

Judd echoes, “We’ve surrounded ourselves with some really great, passionate, gifted, and qualified people. And the only way this ship continues is if we continue to do that.”

Of the current staff, half have been there for decades, some as long as 40 years, and half have been there about three years or less.

“It’s this really amazing mix of experienced, veteran Long’s presence and new folks we’ve brought in to lead the next generation of our evolution,” says Craig.

At times, it’s the newer, younger, less experienced team members who bring the most excitement.

“At some point, they just take it to the next level,” Craig says, “Suddenly, they are making some of the biggest sales they’ve ever made.”

“That’s happened many times and that’s always thrilling because you invest in someone. They trust that they’re going to be able to build a career here, and we trust that, if we invest in them, they’re going to grow into something with us. When that person hits that rocket ship point, it’s always amazing, and I can think of many people off the top of my head.”

Judd remembers his own “rocket ship” moment—the first diamond he ever sold. 

“I remember everything, even the person’s name,” he says.

It happened in 1994, when he first joined the business as an adult after graduating college and attending GIA. 

“I made a great sale but after that, I probably screwed up six months of sales because I thought I knew what I was doing … I was very overconfident, but I learned. But you need missteps like that,” he says.

Now, it’s a teaching tool.

“I think about that all the time when I’m training people, and I tell them to slow down, listen, and pay attention to the details,” he says.

They stress to their team the importance of the small things when it comes to client relationships.

“We have met some of the most extraordinary people in here because of their passion for jewelry or [because] they’ve had a life event they want to [commemorate], or as sad as it is to say, it can go the other way, a catastrophic event. 

“Boston has been affected by a lot of different things in the past. People look to us, and some of the relationships we build out of this are forever,” Judd says.

Shari Reddish, Long’s operations manager, says that, although they revisit the concept every few years, the Long’s sales team is not commission based.

“A lot of our success and intimacy with our customers comes from that because we’re truly here to find out what they need and help them in the best way for them, with nothing to do with any [of our] goals,” she says.

A Front-Row Seat
Reddish just celebrated her 17th anniversary with the company.

Six years into the job, she experienced the moment that showed her what was special about the store’s client relationships.

“I had a client in front of me, and I knew their parents well. They were buying an engagement ring, and I was like, ‘Oh my goodness, I know your parents well from being in here!’” she says.

“That’s when I understood and it clicked that we really are building relationships with people and it’s generational. That was just really special to me. I’d worked with their parents for many years and gotten to know them and now here they are in their early 20s starting an important milestone in their life.”

Reddish was working for British cosmetics company The Body Shop when she says she was recruited to work at Long’s Braintree location. Bob hired her in 2007, just before the recession.

“I didn’t know anything about jewelry at the time, but I was interested, of course,” Reddish says.

“[Bob] could tell I had a knack for client experience and taking care of customers, and he said I could learn the rest.”

She started off in a customer service position and from there, took on a training role for that position before moving into the corporate office.

With the company for nearly two decades now, Reddish has had a front-row seat to the brothers’ ascent, especially Craig, whom she says has mentored her over the years.

“Craig [has] really taken the reins from a marketing perspective and really elevated the client experience,” she says. 

“He is embracing true experience-selling in an environment where we want to get to know our clients, sit down and have a cup of coffee with them. The industry has changed over the years, and I feel like, with our growth, he’s always methodical about it.”

She adds, “We’ve grown over the years quite a bit, but it’s always steady and with purpose and I think a lot of that comes from Craig.”

She’s also inspired by the caring energy Judd has brought to the stores.

“[He embodies] that feeling of wanting to connect with the customers no matter what your role is, because everyone wears a lot of hats,” she says, adding that the brothers represent “the best of both worlds.”

She says the family’s work ethic has shaped her own. 

“They’re in the stores day in and day out, whatever time of year it is, whatever needs to be done. That’s definitely something that permeates throughout the company,” she says. 

“Bob is woven into every aspect of our business, like his work ethic definitely shaped Craig and Judd, and you feel Bob all around. He’s here most days, but even when he’s not here, you feel him.”

Making a Jewelry Store a Home
Like Shari, many Long’s team members have been with the company long enough to have worked for both Bob and his sons. 

Cathy Cronin, Long’s vice president of merchandising, was hired by Bob, and, later, rehired by Craig. 

She joined the company in 1997 as a diamond buyer. Having come from a jewelry manufacturing background, she committed the first few years to learning the retail side of the business.

“I ended up loving it actually, and I didn’t think I would,” she says. “Bob has always been so passionate about the business; it’s not about the money, it’s about what we get to do on a daily basis, helping to share in the celebratory milestone, that’s always kind of been his drive.”

Craig was in college when she was first hired, and Judd already was part of the business.

She left for a few years, and in 2011, Craig brought her back on, this time in a bigger buying role. 

“Bob is kind of like my dad, and Craig and Judd have always kind of felt like my brothers, so it was really natural to come back,” she says.

“It was really an interesting perspective, having worked for Bob, who was second generation learning from his father and working in jewelry in the ‘70s and ‘80s, and then [working with] Craig, who had come out of business school and more of a financial background than a merchant background.” 

She’s now been working alongside Craig for more than a decade.  

“He’s really given me a bigger view of our business, holistically, not just [viewing it as] the merchandise, buying the merchandise and selling the merchandise, but really more how to grow [the business], and what makes us different, and thinking outside the box. It’s been a fantastic journey for me,” Cronin says. 

She’s not surprised the brothers have taken so well to leading the business. 

“Judd has such a merchant mind and Craig has such a business mind, that it’s a perfect blend,” she says. 

Cronin has worked with other family businesses and independent jewelers during her decades in the jewelry industry and she can confirm—the Rottenbergs have something special.  

“It’s nice to see the camaraderie within the Rottenberg family; they’re 100 percent supportive of each other. Being able to listen to each other and be respectful of each other, it is awesome to see, and I think the staff in general feels that. There’s an absolute mutual respect for each other including their mom, who’s also part of the business, Diane.” 

Diane Rottenberg, the brothers say, is the engine behind the scenes, powering everything. 

“The style of the store, the style of the company, there’s so many things. She never had an official role, but she’s influenced everything, and still does,” says Craig. 

The familial and staff support keeps them going, allowing Judd and Craig to plan for the future but also appreciate what they’ve built so far—a six-store, family-owned jewelry business that is respected both in the industry and by its staff. 

“We’re living the dream now,” Craig laughs. “I actually mean that.” 

“As people, we’re not always good at stopping, lifting our eyes up and seeing where we are, but we’re climbing a mountain, and we’ve done OK … We’ve got a long way to go, but we can’t help that. That’s how we’re wired—we can pause for a second on the climb, but we’ve got to keep climbing.”