Long's Jewelers' Craig and Judd Rottenberg Inducted into National Jeweler Retailer Hall of Fame

Craig and Judd Rottenberg of Long’s Jewelers were inducted into the National Jeweler Retailer Hall of Fame in the Multi-Store Independent category.

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.”