Jason
Managing Director
What do you do at Holts: I try to make Holts a great place to work and a great place for clients to feel so welcome that it's like they're walking into their own home. I am also involved as a director with Holts Academy, Holition and Jewellery Innovations all of which have grown from the diversification of Holts in the past few years.
What special skills do you bring to Holts: It's possible that my experience as a solicitor, specialising in commercial litigation, has been helpful in negotiating and planning the direction of Holts. One additional aspect of this experience has been the process of setting up Holts Academy of Jewellery. This required a mixture of stubbornness in not letting the public sector bureaucracy defeat me, relentlessness in drafting hundreds of pages of grant applications, and a hardened liver in stomaching the plethora of networking events needed to persuade the powers that be that skills training for the jewellery industry are essential to secure its future!
If you could make jewellery for any one person, who would it be and why: My wife. She's often remarks on how little jewellery she owns given the occupation her husband is in!
Favourite Gemstone: Alexandrite - myth has it that you can tell the mood people are in by the colour of the alexandrite they are wearing. Red is a bad sign - how useful would that be in the office?!
What's your 'top tip' for customers: In the past I have advised customers to never buy jewellery for investment purposes. The purchase should be for pleasure and pleasure alone. However, with the price rises we've seen so far in 2011 for gold, diamonds and precious stones it seems that not only can you obtain an item of joy, but also more than ever, an article with intrinsic preciousness and value.