Sydney Strong is a successful businesswoman who works hard to uplift her role model, Llyn Strong, as well as to expand her company.
Strong explains, “I was kind of immersed in that growing up because my mom started the business.” She was like, “You’re coming to work with me, partly to keep me busy, and partly because I enjoyed it,” just by default of being a single parent. I began making jewelry when I was six years old. She would cast and finish it after I formed the wax and created something.
Sydney Strong claims she started making her own way, not in the family business but on the field (for a spell). In Greenville, Llyn Strong Fine Art Jewelry and its namesake are well-known.
“I became a pretty good soccer player in the end,” she recalls. “I went to College of Charleston, where I played soccer in college, and I ended up staying for a while to coach there.” And Mom asked, “Well, have you thought about your future?” one day. Would you like to become the company’s owner? You would have to return to Greenville.
Strong claims that although she promised to give it a year, her genuine response was that she simply didn’t know.
“And now, a full twelve years later,” she remarks.
Strong was enthralled with the customers and the diamonds.
“I like learning about their background and discovering what piques their interest, as well as how they relate to the piece they’re either designing or viewing,” the woman says. “I became interested in colored stones and really enjoyed doing that.”
In 2017, Strong graduated from the Gemological Institute of America with a degree as a Graduate Gemologist, encouraged by her mother. Strong was then forced to consider where she was and where she wanted to be, just like so many others, by the pandemic. She and her mother had been talking all along about her taking over the company.
“Until about 2020, the plan was for me to move to Atlanta, to continue designing jewelry and being in the jewelry business, but not being here,” she explains. “My now-wife was in Atlanta.” “We’re going to be in Greenville, let’s do this,” I said after she relocated there after finding employment.
It turns out that “this” is a niche that extends beyond making personalized jewelry designs. Strong belongs to a select group of gem experts due to her advanced degree.
