Point of Clarity

Many things came together to culminate in Genna Zimmer’s career. And as Reeds Jewelers has expanded nationally, so has her role in the family company.

GENNA ZIMMER approached the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business admissions office with a request.

At twenty-four, she was too young and inexperienced for the Executive Master of Business Administration program, according to the program’s requirements, but she requested admittance anyway.

She graduated with her EMBA two years later.

Zimmer’s confidence comes naturally, she says. Early on, she dreamed of becoming an Olympic gymnast, she says, training for a portion of her childhood. It helped her lessen her fear of rejection because she knew she wasn’t going to win every meet.

It stuck with her years later when she wasn’t afraid of not getting admitted to Wharton; she planned to apply until she got in, she says.

“At the end of the day, you don’t get anywhere unless you try and are a little better than the next person,” Zimmer says. “The worst thing that can happen is someone tells you no.”

Zimmer, now thirty-one, went to business school to continue her career at the family business, Reeds Jewelers. Headquartered in Wilmington for almost eighty years, Reeds Jewelers has expanded from a mom-and-pop jewelry store on downtown’s Front Street to a mom-and-pop company with a nationwide presence.

Zimmer leads Reeds’ operations as the vice president of strategy and operations, an executive role falling just under her father and company CEO, ALAN ZIMMER.

Growing up, her family downplayed the breadth of the family business, Genna Zimmer says. She was unaware of the size of the family franchise until her late teenage years. When she arrived at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, her knowledge of the company’s reach grew as she encountered more Reeds stores, where she later worked while earning her undergraduate degree.

Genna Zimmer had no qualms with the idea of joining Reeds, but growing up with a family business – an ever-looming career option – can be conflicting, says her longtime friend PARKER WILSON, who was a part of a family-owned business herself.

“There’s a different emotional tie, I think, that comes with family business,” Wilson says.

There’s a need to fight against assumption, she says, to feel you’ve earned your position in the business.

The push to prove herself helped fuel Genna Zimmer’s decision to go to business school at Wharton, she says. She spent much of her young adult life gaining experience and education so she could feel that she earned her position, both as a member of the Zimmer family and as a woman in business.

“I think it’s natural for anybody to have impostor syndrome as a female,” she says, recalling some of those feelings when arriving at Wharton.

As she passed each exam and advanced in the course, those feelings faded, she says.

Now living in Wilmington, she is happy to represent the Zimmer name, she says. Community members have recognized her name and recounted stories of kindness from her father, Alan, or her grandfather, Bill. She and the other third-generation Zimmers working at Reeds carry the baton, she says.

MITCH CAHN, Reeds’ vice president of marketing, says it is difficult to work for the Zimmers without feeling a familial connection with them. He’s known Genna Zimmer for over twenty years, over a decade professionally.

“(She’s) very driven, very competitive but in a good-spirited sense, not cutthroat, win at all costs,” Cahn says, “the competitive sense of ‘We can do anything, and we can win as a team.’”

Genna Zimmer’s time as an athlete helped instill in her a robust work ethic, she says. This work ethic helped her sail through business school but gave her pause when considering giving up professional development for two years while she continued her studies.

Even after dating her future husband at twenty-two, she told him her plan:

“Before we go on another date, I know what I want to do with my career. I’m going to end up in Wilmington, North Carolina one day,” she told him. “Do you want to come with me before you fall in love?”

Needless to say, it worked out. The two got married the year she graduated from Wharton in 2020.

When it comes to her goals for the future, she is not focused on her ascent to the peak of Reeds’ operations.

She acknowledges her generation in the family will lead the company at some point, but she wants to see the company succeed beyond her career there.

While she acknowledges her career path is unique, business school helped her build confidence and a network of female businesswomen who’ve provided support outside of the family business.

“I felt for a long time that what I wanted out of a career was so different than so many women,” she says. “There are so many women out there that are career motivated and are hard workers that can give you confidence in knowing that your career motivation does not make you crazy.”

To view more of photographer Daria Amato’s work, go to dariaphoto.com

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