The Jaguar #02

INTERVIEW
TIME LORD
Jean-Claude Biver is known for his exceptional drive and headturning
creative strategies. The Jaguar caught up with the
colourful CEO and enfant terrible of the watch industry for a
talk about his inspirations – and why watches need a soul
WORDS: Michelle Mussler
PHOTOGRAPHY: Dirk Bruniecki
Jean-Claude Biver is the grand provocateur of
watchmaking, the man who has brought luxury goods
manufacturer LVMH’s watches – big brands with decades
of heritage behind them like Hublot, TAG Heuer and Zenith –
back onto the wrists of major celebrities including Cristiano
Ronaldo and Cara Delevingne.
At a time when people are looking to the smartphones in
their pockets rather than the watches on their wrists to
tell the time, Biver has managed to not only maintain the
company’s watch business, but grow it: while competitors
saw their sales drop by 15% in 2016, TAG Heuer saw turnover
rise by an impressive 12%.
Now the colourful CEO is taking on a new challenge – taking
over the Zenith brand from Aldo Magada, who left the
company in early 2017. Like a finely-calibrated watch Biver,
who wakes up at 3am and regularly puts in 80-hour weeks in
pursuit of timepiece perfection, has no plans to slow down.
But how does he do it? We sat down with the creative genius
in the watchmaking capital of the world in Basel to find out.
As part of his strategy for the
new TAG Heuer Modular 45
smartwatch, Jean-Claude Biver
decided to bring the entire
production back in-house. To do
so, he built a completely new
manufacturing facility at the
TAG Heuer headquarters in La
Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland
Mr. Biver, you’ve been doing this for 40 years, and at the age
of 68 you’re sending out emails at a time most people are
fast asleep. What motivates you to keep going?
Passion, pure and simple. Without it I would have retired years
ago. If the job wasn’t fun, I would have long since packed up
and marched off to the North Pole or Bhutan. Alternatively,
I’d be back at university, doing a degree in art, stuck my head
in a book, rediscovered sport, looking after my cows, hiking –
the list is endless.
And yet you’re going to run a marathon.
Not before I hit 70 in two years’ time! I am just getting into my
training, but I have many other projects on the go too.
42 THE JAGUAR