There’s something so special about knowing you’re among family. A family bond is unique, and it manifests to others in really special ways. It’s felt in warmth and hospitality, it’s evident in avowals of loyalty, and it’s apparent in the integrity with which business is conducted. In an attempt to convey in words how exceptional it feels to be surrounded by so much deep-seated love, we are launching our multi-part “Family Affair” feature. In our first edition, we focus on a just a few of the businesses in which a parent and their child or children work together—Anzie, Anne Sportun, Buddha Mama, Jorge Adeler and Renato Cipullo. While their origin stories are varied, we discovered a number of similarities in their stories and a stark contrast to the trope of kids itching to grow up and fly the coop.

Origin Stories:

Renato hails from a family of jewelers and began designing when he was 14 years old. His work continues to be a reflection of his strong Italian heritage and the renown for which that region’s metalsmithing traditions are celebrated. Noting he’s always had a creative mind, he explains, “Growing up in that environment and understanding the process, it was very organic for me to go into it. Myself and my siblings all began working for my father at a young age which resulted in all of us working and studying at the same time. I was attracted to the creative process and pride of having a creation worn out in the world.”

Anzie, the namesake of her brand, and Nancy Badia, founder of Buddha Mama, were both drawn to the craft by charitable instincts. Nancy began stringing beads by hand to raise funds for her Buddhist center in Coconut Grove, and from there she started making custom pieces for friends and family. After attending her first trade show she became even more fascinated with the artform, and she got excited about a future career in jewelry, delighting in her ability to convey her values and worldview in precious metals and gemstones.

When Anzie’s husband was diagnosed with cancer in his 40s, the family traveled extensively for his treatments. “I found that making jewelry and sourcing gemstones during those trips were a nice distraction from what we were going through,” Anzie says. Creating the “Lifesaver” bracelet to raise funds for colon cancer awareness was a natural extension of what started as a source of distraction and eventually became the bedrock of her business when she and her daughter Jaclyn started the company together in 1999.

Anne and Jorge were both drawn to the expressiveness inherent in jewelry and, in each of their ways, they were mesmerized by turning their emotions into tangible form with their hands. Jorge began designing in 1975, and throughout the many adventures that brought him to that point, becoming a jeweler seems to have been a foregone conclusion.

After emigrating from Argentina, with a will to support their family, Jorge and his wife started businesses trading in their native country’s natural treasures, the smallest of which ended up casting their spell on Jorge. When I asked Jorge during a 2022 podcast when the allure of gemstones ultimately took hold, Jorge told me, “I don’t think that there is one magic moment. I think that is the evolution of life. One thing takes you to another, all of a sudden you get exposed to a new gem, you fall in love with it, and you want to do something to dignify that beautiful gem.”

Anne’s obsession with jewelry and her entrepreneurial spirit began at a young age. As a child, she was besotted by playing with her grandmother’s costume jewelry, which was stored in two elegant cookie tins, and her intrinsic love of making things with her hands led to a teenage Anne teaching herself how to make stained glass lamps. She also created a small line of stained glass earrings, which she began wholesaling to local shops when she was 16. The pull of jewelry had its hold, and she later ended up deferring her university studies to enroll in a 3-year goldsmithing program, telling me, “I never looked back!”

Succession:

Wendy and Valentina Adeler and Jaclyn and Joanne Stein have only ever known a life that included the family business. Jaclyn and Joanne explain, “The business began from our home, so we saw the company grow from the beginning and we always wanted to be involved.” Though they went to university, returning to the business was always the ultimate goal. They made and sold pieces to family and friends, attended trade shows and trunk shows, and worked other jobs throughout college to hone skills that could benefit the brand. Using the Anzie brand as a subject of their business and marketing projects, they gained valuable insights from their professors and fellow students that they could apply to fostering the success of the family business.

Alone in a new country, the Adelers have always relied upon their tight family bond. Valentina remembers napping under counters when she and her sister Wendy were young, and at six years old she made her first sale (in Pittsburgh, $5!). By 7, she and a 13 year old Wendy managed one store while their parents ran another. “The business has always been a part of my life, and since our family had an immigrant story beginning, and no family support, all we knew was to stick together, work together and get done what needed to get done,” Valentina explains. Both Wendy and Valentina eventually struck off and started their own businesses, following in their father’s entrepreneurial footsteps. Yet the gravitational force of the family unit overtook them both, and they reunited with their father in business, much to his delight.

While Serena Cipullo grew up having no interest in the family business, saying she didn’t really even like or appreciate jewelry, that all changed when she took a “temporary” role helping out her dad while his secretary was on maternity leave. She had been working at an architecture firm and wanted to move into a design or graphic design position and notes the serendipity in the trajectory of her involvement with her father’s business, “Over the years my role has evolved from assistant duties to essentially running the business and designing and collaborating with my dad; I continue to learn a lot from him.”

Anne’s daughter, Haley Woodbury, initially went to university to pursue her love for dance, but 15 years ago, after graduation, she found herself missing the jewelry world and returned to the business, saying that’s when she discovered her true passion. “My mom’s creativity and the joy her work brought to others inspired me to push for a full-time role,” she says. “After gaining experience in various positions in wholesale and retail, I was offered a partnership.” A co-owner of the business for the past four years, Haley now collaborates with her mom on design while also managing the brand’s operations.

Dakota Badia saw the momentum of her mom’s business and it sparked some ideas for the future, both creatively and for the brand’s expansion. After joining the company, the two found a manufacturer through a friend who could help them scale their business, and Dakota was “hooked pretty quickly with everything about designing jewelry!” Living within minutes of one another in Miami, the closeness of their relationship lends itself to a shorthand in their approach to all aspects of the business, and they take great joy in kicking around ideas for designs, as well as plans for both the long and short term future of the brand, always ensuring they have a great time at whatever they’re doing.

Impact:

While Jorge puts incredible stock in the impact Valentina and Wendy had on the creative direction of the brand, emoting, “It was as if I had been working in a dark room and they turned on a light,” the sisters don’t exactly see it that way. Val believes that, at least at first, their greatest contribution was aiding in the ability to grow the company from a sole proprietorship to a larger company with more marketability, visibility and awareness within their market. With a storefront in Great Falls, Virginia, Val’s GG from GIA and title holder certification from AGS enhanced the family’s reputation as a fine, bespoke jeweler, and Wendy has been instrumental in expanding its reach by managing their wholesale accounts and focusing on its website and marketing.

Applying her knowledge, expertise and discerning eye for style, Val works with her father on designs, while Wendy ensures the brand is relevant and widely available, “I think Val and I have helped to keep evolving the brand, but our father is really someone who has tremendous vision and has an incredible ability to adapt and change and modify in accordance with what is happening” Wendy says. She adds, “I love that my job is to brag about my dad and my sister and their amazing designs every day!”

Renato credits his daughter for reinvigorating designs from his archival collections, reviving the brand’s reputation for iconic design in the process. Saying they have similar tastes, they are frequently aligned on aesthetics, and with Renato creating models and prototypes on the bench and Serena applying her contemporary lens and subtle tweaks to his designs, the duo ensures they emphasize an Italian sensibility and an uncompromising standard of craftsmanship in the creation of pieces that are both covetable and collectable.

Since Jaclyn and Anzie started the business together, the art direction has always come from the two of them. Yet the designs have evolved throughout the years based on trends, inspiration and seeing what their clients want. From Nancy and Anne’s perspective, the creative direction of their brands didn’t change when their daughters joined the business, however, Nancy posits that Dakota, as well as their agent, Elizabeth Bonanno of The EAB Project and The Gems Project, helped the business expand.

Togetherness:

At Anne Sportun, Anzie, Jorge Adeler and Renato Cipulo there are distinct distribution of duties, with each member of the team focusing on their areas of expertise and interests, and at Buddha Mama, Nancy and Dakota pretty much tackle everything as a team. However, across the board, they all say the favorite part of working in a family business is simply being together.

For the Adelers, coming into the store each day, five dogs in tow, they relish sitting over coffee discussing the days plans, the future of the brand and what’s going on in each of their lives. Recognizing they work harder than they likely would if they were working for someone else, Wendy takes pride in their shared work ethic, “That has come from watching my dad and mom build this life for us from very modest, immigrant beginnings. It’s something you can’t teach, but we all have it because we are family; there is genuine respect and affection and that is something you can feel when you are with any or all of us.”

Haley loves seeing how much fun work can be. Looking at her mom as an ongoing source of inspiration, she says, “My mom has always shown that it’s possible to truly love what you do. We have a great time collaborating, and I feel incredibly honored to carry on her legacy.” For her part, Anne is both happy to spend time with her daughter, and brimming with pride to see her blossom in her role, “I admire and respect Haley as our team leader, and they adore her. I trust every decision she makes; she is now my boss!”

Renato and Serena love the opportunities that come from being in such close proximity. Alone in the studio every day, they’re able to share ideas and work through their differences in perspectives to arrive at solutions that benefit the brand. Serena also enjoys hearing her dad’s many stories of his past, learning about the industry through his experiences. Always happy to bring levity to their day-to-day life, Serena is also known to crack jokes and keep the mood light.

While Anzie and Joanna live in Canada, Jaclyn lives in the New York City area, where she maintains creative director responsibilities and manages the U.S. distribution for the brand. And as much as the three are in constant communication, they love that they get to travel together for trade shows, trunk shows, personal appearances and meetings. “I love travelling with my daughters,” Anzie enthuses. Since Jaclyn doesn’t get to see her sister and mom all the time, they try to ensure their work trips have some fun packed in, “Business trips are never lonely, and we often find something fun to do together,” Joanna says.

Nancy and Dakota Badia are both passionate about the industry, and they love that their jobs allow them to travel the globe together. From visiting their long-standing factory in Thailand to combing for gemstones in Tucson to personal appearances across the country to traveling to Vegas for COUTURE, they love spending time together on the road. “We love to travel and have fun,” Dakota says. “I think we are so fortunate, and we truly love this industry.”

Safe in the knowledge that they are all rooting for one another, and everyone has the best intentions at heart, conflict seems to rarely come up in these family-owned operations. “We all want the same thing,” Wendy Adeler says. “Our vision for how to get there is sometimes different, and we just have to listen to each other and find the common path forward.” When there are differences of opinions, Anzie agrees that knowing you’re on the same page makes all the difference. “It’s important to remind each other that all of our intentions are for the success of the business.”

After taking a beat, which Anzie and Haley both advise, they all approach conflict in the same way, head on through talking and listening. For the Adelers, the process is in-depth, “We discuss it to death,” Valentina exclaims. “After lengthy discussions, and after all of the opinions and viewpoints are expressed, we discuss options and alternatives to resolve them. Then we vote on the solution and keep working until the vote is unanimous. It’s not always fast or easy, but it’s always respectful and almost always satisfies us individually.”

Haley and her mom also have multiple conversations, taking a break to give one another time to process, and then coming back to discuss things again. While Anne says she usually concedes, this process for resolving the issue helps them to understand each other better. Serena says it was a learning process uncovering the best way to talk things out when conflicts arise between she and her dad, but seven years has allowed them to work out the kinks of their communication.

Saying they don’t really have conflicts, but mere “butting heads” from time to time, Nancy tells me they always resolve things quickly. “Usually by an F-bomb or a bad joke, a laugh and we move on.”