INDUSTRY MATTERS: NAJ CEO on upholding standards in an ever-changing industry

Just over 10 years on from its founding, the NAJ now boasts a membership which is 1,700-strong, and the big industry issues in its inbox chop and change year by year, from fluctuating gold prices to the impact of business rate relief. CEO Ben Massey tells Watch Insider’s Daniel Malins just how important the association’s commitment to proactivity is to its members.

Watch Insider: Firstly, I’d like to focus on you. What roads led to where you find yourself now, as the CEO of the NAJ, and how do you define success for you in your role?

Ben Massey: Big question! I’ve worked in membership organisations for 15 years now. I came out of university and I was elected as a student president of the student union, and I became the representative voice on behalf of the students at the university. A big part of that was understanding what people wanted to improve their experience and do better. Effectively we’re all on the same team, but how do we make things a little bit smarter?

That was a really useful learning, from the point of view of honing a bit of a skill set but also really getting enjoyment out of working on engagement between members and individuals. I then worked through the university and actually led an association of graduate schools. This meant working with university graduate schools across the country, who wanted to grow and develop PhD and master study that then harnessed the people and the different needs of different businesses.

From there, I then moved into the trade association world with the Pest Control Association, driving the marketing and communications. Again, it was a case of putting the members first and looking at how we can support them. I then moved across to the NAJ, the chief executive left, and I spoke to the board and told them how much I’d like to be given an opportunity, and asked if they would support me to get there.

I knew there was gaps with my experience and so on but I was really thankful and appreciative of the people around me at that time, who are still around me, but also to the wider team, as it was not only me on this journey, but it has been a team of great people in both our staff team and our volunteer team as well. It is this coming together where thoughts, ideas, needs, and wants make sure that barriers and challenges can be overcome and that we ensure opportunity continues to exist.

What drives me? The DNA for me is how the association, in what it does and is, supports its members to be more successful. Success is profit and a responsible kind of profit. So, can we support them to be more profitable? Can we support them to be more responsible?

WI: Can those two things sometimes feel incongruous to the member?

BM: You can make money irresponsibly and, equally, you can be responsible and not make any money. In 10 or 15 years’ time, there will be businesses now that may not be around, but to know there is a platform to be able to launch from, and to grow through, that’s the peace of mind that the Association is there for.

There are things that we do on behalf of our members. There’s the representation piece — to government, to trade shows, and that is external. But there is also a lot internal of industry, a lot on professional standards and compliances. That’s the one thing you can hang your hat on and really confidently say, no matter if you’re a retailer, manufacturer, wholesaler, a valuer, this is what you need to do in a myth busting approach. That NAJ logo on your website, business card, shop, or workshop, gives your employees, your customers, and your suppliers the peace of mind that you act in the right way.

What drives us is that it could be a small designer business, it could be a multi-chain, but those two businesses are operating under the same values of honesty, integrity, and professionalism. They want to do the right thing. They also want to develop and grow, and that’s the business, no matter what size, that I want to support. That is what we are here for.

You can make money irresponsibly and, equally, you can be responsible and not make any money.”

WI: To what extent are you the messenger to present the new legal framework to these businesses? To what extent is that your role versus saying that the NAJ has its own standards that you want members to follow, independent of the government?

BM: There are the four pillars that we’ve got which are: representation, professional standards, education. and training. And then the benefits and services. Benefits and services is: “What do I get for my money each year?” Professional standards is there to ensure whatever is legally required to happen, happens. There’s the legal standard but there’s also the jewellery law, and we merge that picture and simplify it for them. That simplified view is industry-specific and understandable, whether they are in the MD’s office or on the sales counter. It is a jargon-free approach.

At the moment, we’ve got a group of those codes and over the coming years we will grow how businesses understand them, because we’ve also got to make sure we’re taking businesses and supporting them on that journey. If members come to us and explain that they really want to join but can’t get to that standard yet, we also have support to show them the ways and means of getting there. What do you need? Where are the gaps? We can advise on that because when they get to that point and they’d really like to join the association, they want to do that with confidence. Equally, it’s also our role, when you learn of behaviour that goes against these codes of practice, to investigate. We then can step in and say something isn’t quite right. A tap on the shoulder, corrective action, and that’s why we’ve got a disciplinary process. This is where we work with a member, identify what needs to be resolved, and understand and communicate.

WI: What you’ve said raises a question on the difference between a small ‘spit and sawdust’ jeweller and, at the other extreme, a Watches of Switzerland. How difficult is it to have uniformity when you don’t have the resources for bespoke member guidance?

BM: If you’ve got a multiple retailer that will have in-house expertise in compliance, for example, what’s really good is that they can do that, but they can also recognise that they are part of an organisation that allows them to support other jewellers too. It means it is not just looking out for themselves, but actually there’s an industry responsibility that they are very happy to carry, because what we know is that we want a customer to have such a positive experience of being able to go and buy jewellery, watches, and silverware, that we want them to keep coming back.
We don’t want them to have had a negative experience, and decide they are going to buy holidays or furniture instead. So, the industry responsibility, the parity, and the support, I think that’s where we’re on the same team.

WI: How do you provide that support in reality?

BM: Whether it’s education and training, which is a really good example because we probably have a 50/50 split in terms of multiple retailers and independent retailers that go through the JET (Jewellery, Education, and Training) programmes. We have all the main CMJ members, Hallmark Buying Group members, and businesses that aren’t attached to any of those, who tell us that they want their people to be trained appropriately and so they are then confident to sell. I think we do this by the shaping of what that training looks like with the education and training committee for a multiple retailer, an independent retailer, or a wholesaler. You’ve got that cross-cutting way of looking at how we deliver and stand behind some of these high value products and services. It means the cross-cutting approach, which works for education and training, also works for the professional and technical standards and it also works for the representation piece.

That NAJ logo, on your website, business card, shop or workshop, gives your employees, your customers, and your suppliers the peace of mind that you act in the right way.”

WI: One of the issues you’ve tried to help with more recently is the volatility of the price of precious metals. Gold is the one that’s most in the press. Acknowledging that there is a potential issue doesn’t make it necessarily easy to say what can be done about it, but how do you come across as helpful with something like that?

BM: When you’ve got policy and compliance and standards, you must acknowledge it. It’s a legal requirement. When it is happening in the market though, that’s when there’s a very different approach. At that point, it’s not for an association to turn around and say: “You must do this.” What it is for its Association to do is to benefit from that engagement with its members. We’ve got some of those cross-cutting committees on the technical standards and the education, but we also have community groups of independent retailers together.

Talking to each other is asking designers about what they are doing around the current flux in prices. Are there any things that have been really helpful that they will confidently share with other designers in the membership? And to suppliers: what are you doing at the moment in terms of the challenges and how are you coming at it? Multiple retailers, the same thing. This means you have relevant pointers towards how to operate and, as it comes from what our members are telling us they’re doing, you might want to consider these because then there’s some consistency in approaches.

WI: I guess you’ve got more of a bird’s eye view on things because you’re not on the hamster wheel of the individual shop or supplier. Do you feel like that is advantageous to you?

BM: Don’t be an island, right? The metal prices might be a reason to engage, and then there might be something else that comes along and makes one think: “What do we do about this?” The benefit is engaging with like-minded businesses, like-minded individuals, and, whether it’s conferences or buying meetings, it’s picking up the phone or participating in such networks.

Your association is not going to have all the answers, but the members have the knowledge. You can go to any of these events and you just know the knowledge is in the room. The knowledge is in the membership. What it comes down to is how you communicate and engage in order for that sharing to take place. There are things that people are willing to share and there are some things people won’t be willing to share.

WI: It’s a good way of putting it. I suppose a lot of what you guys do is to squeeze the information out of the membership that you can aggregate and package up.

BM: Yeah, that is what associations are there to do. They’re there to listen to the members. I think that curiosity is crucial because if you’re not curious about why something is happening and what you are doing about it, you wouldn’t have the answers for the line of 50 businesses that are communicating to the association. What are we doing about it? Have we got anything on succession, for instance?

It then means there’s some guidance or some collection of things that you might want to have a think about. We can loop them in on some members that have been going through the same thing recently and they can share what has happened and how they’ve gone about things, because there are different approaches that you might take. The matchmaking part of that as a member to member, I think that’s something we’d like to grow more. Equally, when you have certain expertise, there might be a topic that might need a bit more handholding.

As I say, I think growing some of that is where our aspirations are. That’s because there’s an association doing things, advising things, repackaging things. There’s the guidance in the information and that kind of knowledge space and that knowledge hub. That is something we will continue to develop. This is a three or four year journey for us because you’ve got to make it easy to find and easy to access. I actually believe AI can play a really useful part in that.

The third thing is what expertise we can build out of some of the challenges that we have got our ear to the ground on. This will allow us to speak to one person and learn more on how they helped a particular business. If you don’t have your ear to the ground and know the word on the street, then you can’t do that.

WI: How difficult is it to get people together to implement these kinds of things? Everyone in retail is super busy from what I can gather. How big is the gap between what you ideally want to do at the NAJ and what is actually possible?

BM: The reactive capacity is significant. We are reacting. This is an organisation that is made up of members’ money and members’ resources. To be able to build those resources up, there has to be a surplus that’s generated to then reinvest back in.

There are simplified processes and things we stopped doing because they were not serving a need. It’s something we’ve always done. If they’re not serving a need then we stand that down because there is a need on other things that we then need to move towards.

I have a fantastic management team. Katie [Gillespie] in compliance, Marie [Garnett] in education, Adam [Cook] in Marketing, and then Paul [Smith] on membership. I established that team in January last year, so we’re really only about 12 months into our first cycle. The three areas that we’re going with are: member engagement, both engaging with the association but also with each other; voice, in terms of representation — that voice is where a unified British Jewellery, Silverware and Allied Crafts council of bodies came from; and the third thing is that knowledge hub, sharing accessible resources. Then it comes down to what a good association is. It considers what the needs of its members are in 10 years’ time and it takes and supports people there, rather than just what’s the here and now.

No matter how big you are, there’s a really strong reason why to buy from British businesses, but you have to make sure that the whole value chain is within the UK, and not international.

The standards of business process here is so valuable because then your buyer is able to see all the checks and balances and how the business is run. Then they can say there’s a real value elevation of why they’re going to continue or start to do business with that company.

The biggest challenge for most of our members in how they run their business is mostly people. That’s in recruitment and in retention.”

WI: Do you think some businesses reach a certain scale where their standards are so high that it almost transcends a trade body or an organisation? If so, do you feel that you’re more relevant the smaller the business?

BM: Take representation. If you’ve got a different shape or size of business, then the influence in which an independent association to anyone, business or brand or organisation, is extremely powerful. Whereas a smaller business might have more confidence in knowing their association has got their back and is speaking on its behalf. It knows that business rates have been a kicker. It knows that National Insurance contributions have been a kicker. It knows that the living wage increase has been a kicker. We will continue to lobby on behalf of our members of all sizes and shapes around those input costs and around all the challenges that come through. That smaller business might be more confident in referencing what it gets from its association, where most of its value is. I suppose there’s a clever little visual map on which is the type of business where those benefit services are really felt.

There are certain things like standards, education, that run across all different sizes, but when you have things like security, through SaferGems alerts, which only members of NAJ or TH March clients can get access to, then that’s helping people no matter what size the business is, from Bond Street to Buchanan Street and all of the towns and villages around the country as well.

I think you’re always going to have slightly different needs and wants from different types of businesses but that’s where it’s important that associations are accessible and can understand those different needs and wants. If I didn’t have a national committee, didn’t have small independent retailers, didn’t have designers, then there is a risk that we would lose sight of the relevance to that particular jeweller type.

WI: Being as apolitical as possible and focusing purely on the economics of it, how dispiriting is it to see measures which are so obviously stunting for growth and employment?

BM: It’s incredibly frustrating. I was in a meeting yesterday and a manufacturer, who would have taken four apprentices on, is unable to because there’s £100,000 straight off his bottom line. That could have gone to skills development and people development and then gone to build the resilience and robustness within that business.

WI: Are you saying £100,000 has been swallowed up by tax increases?

BM: Yes, and there has been a slowing of businesses who would have taken people on but they’re not in that position anymore because of business rates, because of national insurance contributions. Input costs have slowed them.

WI: Wow. The other thing that’s been on my mind recently is the shortage of skilled watchmakers. Is that something that sits within your remit?

BM: I don’t think you need to put ‘watchmakers’ on the end of that sentence — I think we just need to put the lack of skills coming in under that umbrella. For us, we’ve got to be attractive, and we’ve got to talk through a pipeline. This is right from some school age and the V Levels that are coming in next year.

For example, art and craft. There’s a pathway that goes through there, and the micro-engineering and jewellery watchmaking and the diversity of skills and approaches is so exciting. I think the role of not just the NAJ but the different bodies and organisations, inclusive of the likes of Alistair [Audsley] and the team at the Alliance of British Watch and Clock Makers, who now provide a fantastic careers tool, is to join this up. If we think about skilled tradespeople that are approaching, or are already in, those twilight years, and we look at what’s coming through, we are going to have a clamour for talent and people versus lorry drivers, plumbers, and whatever trades there are out there. We’ve got to communicate with that one unified voice to show what this world looks like and explain what the opportunities are. I think there’s a job for the bodies to do there, but I think there’s also a job and recommendations for businesses and organisations, because we’ve got to be less invisible.

I think there’s an immense power in being able to actually elevate and promote what these people do and how they do it because they are the rock stars. For an individual, it will be powerful to say: “This could be you in two or three years.” I think there’s also a local role in how businesses can attract, develop, and invest in people. There’s a lobbying piece on how you match that investment and remove some of those barriers for government and local combined authorities to support.

And then that third thing is what the national picture looks like. How do we get some of that air time in creative industries? There’s real growth there so can we anchor ourselves within a space that is in that growth area? Can we also be thinking about the superpower of people with neurodiversity, for example. What a superpower that is for skilled tradespeople. It is a real asset. We need to be in a place in which we can say: “This is us.”

WI: To conclude, what would you say is the single biggest issue that you are hearing about now among your members?

BM: The biggest challenge for most of our members in how they run their business is mostly people. That’s in recruitment and in retention, as well as in the support and internal people challenges. I think the value here is talking to members and having that active listening to find out what they want to achieve this year. When we do that, a lot of those tend to be with their teams and their individuals and what they are going to do with them personally. That’s a learning because your people are often the biggest cost or biggest asset as a business, so directing and supporting and engaging those people really drives the business forward.

This article first appeared in the April 2026 edition of Watch Insider.