The basics:

• Justin Golden succeeds his father, Michael Golden, as CEO of Stephen Gould
• Company has 40+ offices worldwide, nearly $950 million in annual revenue
• Golden has worked across multiple roles & completed a formal succession plan
• Stephen Gould provides integrated packaging, design, production & supply-chain solutions

Global packaging, design and supply-chain solutions provider Stephen Gould named Justin Golden as its new CEO this week, elevating the third generation of the founding family to its leadership post.

Golden succeeds his father, Michael Golden, in the top spot at the Madison-based company. Stephen Gould boasts more than 40 offices worldwide and annual revenue of about $950 million. The company ranks 22nd on the NJBIZ list of the state’s top privately held companies.

Justin Golden told NJBIZ that the appointment marks the culmination of a long succession planning process. “I’m 42, so it’s been going on for 41 years,” he joked.

“It’s given me the opportunity both to focus on my own development, focus on some team building, really my core team, and then allowed us some space to actually start introducing some of the work and the priorities that we really wanted to focus on in this next chapter of our growth life cycle,” he said. “So it’s felt so much more organic and natural shifting in, as opposed to having to maybe starting in January as CEO, and then introduce a whole new slate of priorities to the organization.

“That’s put us in a, I think, pretty strong position to hit the ground running.”

Making a plan

As is often typical in family-owned businesses, Golden served in a variety of roles for the company before becoming CEO.

“I’ve been in the business since middle school, and I grew up in it, worked across every role, pretty much, that exists — from clerical to finance, operations, technology,” he said. “And the last five to seven years is probably when we got really intentional about what additional exposures do I need? How am I starting to learn much more about lifting your head up and running an entire organization as opposed to a particular set of functions? And then, the last two years has been the really defined, concentrated succession planning effort, with help from our board, with help from third-party experts to facilitate all of the unpacking and the planning that goes into it.”

The company began as a small packaging maker on Manhattan’s Lower East Side in 1939. It has since grown into offering a full suite of supply chain services, including packaging distribution, along with fully integrated design, production and logistics services. Golden said he believes that diversity puts Stephen Gould in a good position to meet future demand and accelerate growth. The company, he explained, “is moving beyond just packaging, and trying to reshape the interpretation of what being a packaging supplier really can be, into what I would call a more full turnkey supply chain provider.”

Beyond packaging

And with potential supply chain disruptions at the top of mind for many business owners and executives, Golden sees opportunities for Stephen Gould.

“We really try to become an extension of our clients’ teams and go beyond just packaging to really look at everything from product development, design engineering and prototyping, all the way through to production, where we’re actually beginning to become the contract manufacturer and produce products on our clients’ behalf,” he said. “[An] end-to-end supply chain partner that reduces the amount of touchpoints that our clients have to manage. If it’s five, six, seven vendors that they’re having to manage, they can lean on Steven Gould as an integrated supply chain partner.”

Golden acknowledged that the company faces some of the same challenges other businesses are dealing with. “I think that it’s probably the combination of some global factors that certainly are out of our control,” he said, citing tariff policy. “I’m not going to play politics or have an informed enough opinion on that entire world, but I know as a result of that, as just one example, it creates such a churn for packaging businesses, for anyone that’s in supply chain, to have to really double down and triple down on, ‘How do I provide the best choices for our clients? How do we look at different avenues around the world and around the country to give the best solutions that our clients ultimately can make the choice on?”

We really try to become an extension of our clients’ teams and go beyond just packaging…
– Justin Golden, Stephen Gould CEO

Looking up

Nonetheless, Golden said he is optimistic about the future of the company and the economy in general.

“For Stephen Gould, compared to the last couple years, this is about, I think, as optimistic as we’ve been entering the year, notwithstanding certainly not just noise, but the complexities of certain global markets, of economic conditions,” he told NJBIZ. “Not to be overly redundant, but the positioning, I think, that we’ve been purposefully doing over these last couple years has allowed us to really gain in market share and pursue new opportunities.

“So I think we’re really entering a new growth cycle for ourselves that 2026 will really be a kickstarter for some real momentum that we’re feeling right now.”

Golden most recently served as Stephen Gould’s president of global packaging, design and supply-chain solutions. He earned a bachelor of arts in economics from the University of Pennsylvania and serves on the board of directors of The RIVER Fund, a nonprofit anti-poverty organization.