Industry News – Massive Shake-ups Again at Richemont – Inc. New CEOs for JLC and Baume & Mercier
2017 has been quite hectic for the Richemont Group. Indeed, we’ve seen the “Big Reshuffle” with 4 CEOs leaving (JLC, Vacheron, Piaget, Dunhill) as well as the appointment of Lambert as Head of Operations and Kern as Head of Watchmaking, Marketing and Digital. Everything was planned until Kern announced its departure for Breitling, which led Lambert to be appointed COO of all the Maisons. The storm isn’t over yet, even if the situation seems easier today. According to Business Montres, there are new CEOs for both Jaeger-LeCoultre and Baume et Mercier.
As far as boss complications go, the world timer is pretty up there. Not only is it technically impressive, it’s also visually arresting: the city ring and typically colourful layout make walking around with one of these on your wrist the watch equivalent of playing Beyoncé’s ‘Run the World (Girls)’ wherever you go. Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Geophysic Tourbillon Universal Time takes it to the next level by adding — yes, you guessed it — a flying tourbillon into the mix, for that extra horological pop. But before we get to the tourbillon, let’s take a step back and talk Geophysic. The Geophysic collection, relaunched a few years ago, is a typically sober and not-too-dressy take on a scientist’s watch. A key feature of the line is the true second, which sees the hand move in crisp, one-second increments rather than the typical mechanical sweep. The true second featured on the regular production world timer, but hasn’t made it to this Tourbillon model. In fact, any form of seconds hand has dropped from the equation, to give all the more space for the flying tourbillon (the first ever integrated into a world timer), that forms the heart of calibre 948. For me, the…