Two generations of Asper alum want to be your jeweller

When recent Asper school of business grad Brooke Appelt [BComm(hons)/25] would bring home business case studies from class, she would often find her dad just as invested in them as she was. 

Her dad, Jeff Appelt [BComm(hons)/96], is perhaps a name you may recognize better attached to the words “My name is…and I want to be your jeweller” during a radio commercial for Appelt’s Diamonds, the local jeweller with four stores across Manitoba.

Brooke now joins her dad as a fourth-generation member of the family business, working on the marketing team, and running social media. It’s been 88 years since her great grandfather (and Jeff’s grandfather) Benjamin Appelt, a watchmaker, opened the first Appelt’s store in Morden, Manitoba. 

Anyone who has ever owned a business knows the greatest test is time. And 88 years is a long time.

How did they do it? For Jeff and Brooke Appelt, it’s three lessons found at the core of an Asper School of Business education: innovation, connection, and a genuine commitment to Manitoba. 
 

Bringing something new to the table

Jeff, who is the third generation CEO, always knew he wanted to do business…which was surprisingly not the family norm when he was growing up.

Jeff’s father, the second-generation Bert Appelt, went into university to become a schoolteacher instead of joining Appelt’s.

But life, always reliable to throw a curveball, had other plans—Benjamin had a stroke and couldn’t work. Bert left university to take over. When he realized his father wasn’t coming back, he found a passion for the business, and got to work.

Bert became an amazing self-taught businessman, who notably expanded Appelt’s into multiple locations in Winnipeg. But Jeff (who was 12 when he started biking to the Morden Appelt’s store to do odd jobs) opted to attend business school to learn a few things his dad didn’t.

“I really wanted to bring something else to the table,” Jeff says. 

Sporting long hair and a ponytail (he claims he has no photos from that time), Jeff did just that at the Asper School of Business. 

A network of future business leaders

Besides critical thinking skills, Jeff is also grateful for the network that he gained from living an active social life at the Asper School. 

“The people that are in Asper, the people you’re going to school with every day, a lot of those people are going to be business leaders in the city years later,” he says. “And those are great connections.”

He tells the story of a classmate who he found lying on the floor one day. Jeff says the classmate came from an “extremely” wealthy family (no names were named), but he was searching underneath the drink machine for a dime he had dropped.

Decades later they’re still friends and business connections. “But,” Jeff says, “now he changes the story that it was a quarter.”

“I like that story because when you’re a student, everyone’s on the same level,” he says. 
 

New Adventures

Brooke Appelt followed her dad’s footsteps pretty closely at Asper, also earning her degree with a major in marketing. 

However, she veered off the path a few times…actually quite far…to France and Germany.

“I did two exchanges, which were the most fun I’ve ever had in my life. I tell everyone: go on an exchange. Go on an exchange,” she says. 

It was a win-win for her. She graduated in high school in 2020, and planned to take a year off to travel. With another curveball—COVID—she thought she lost her chance. But by enrolling in exchange, she says, “it was the perfect medium where I didn’t have to take any time out of school to do it.”

On each exchange she studied at foreign universities while pushing herself out of her box and overcoming the unique challenges of new surroundings. When you’re an exchange student, it’s easy to feel distanced from your classmates, but Brooke took pleasure in finding the common ground.
 

Building Community, Inspiring Innovation

While they’re connecting everywhere, their heart is still at home in the Manitoba business community. When Appelt’s expanded their operations from Morden to three additional Winnipeg locations, they feared they might lose that small-town feel. They didn’t.

“When you start talking to guests that come into the store, all you have to do is start asking them questions. […] within a couple of minutes, we have a common connection.” Jeff says. 

They even still use “diamond rooms.” Originating in their Morden store, these are private spaces where future grooms can shop for engagement rings without fear of being seen by someone they know; they also provide an intimate buying experience for the guest. 

Appelt’s continues to re-invest in the community, donating to organizations like Siloam Mission and CancerCare Manitoba (and more), even hosting less fortunate people at their home for Christmas dinner. 
 

What they’re doing is working, and their recent win of Multi-Store Retailer of the Year at the Canadian Jewellers Association Awards in Toronto proves it. But an Asper education teaches you to innovate—and the last thing they want to be is complacent. 

Regular brainstorming meetings are a big deal to the Appelts:

It’s that spirit to keep pushing which has kept them going so long, and it’s what Brooke plans to inject into the company which holds her name above the door, or the social media page: “I want to bring a lifestyle aspect to the brand and elevate it. I want to portray the familial feeling of the company,” Brooke says.

Saying she’s a new voice for the company would be cliché, but in this case, she actually is…on the semi-Manitoba-famous Appelt’s radio ads. In one I heard, her and her dad’s banter was a bit witty, a bit sarcastic, and you could feel the real family bond between them. 

The old saying “art imitates life” is used when the lines between an artist’s life and the art they create is blurred. But maybe business imitates life, too.