New Frontiers

The outgoing CEO of TAG Heuer Julien Tornare shares his management style and values. No doubt these will remain consistent in his new role as Hublot CEO, just as they were in his Zenith tenure

- ASHOK SOMAN

After the usual season of introductions at Watches and Wonders Geneva (W WG), the team here gets right into the mix of assessing what might be most relevant to collectors and more casual enthusiasts alike. Top of the l ist on both counts are what happens when there is a new CEO to get to know. If members of the management team are new, there is also the interesting yet tough question of how much credit to assign, and where. Or, conversely, where the brickbats should be directed.

At TAG Heuer, things looked very much like this earlier this year, with Julien Tornare f inally announced as the incoming CEO for the brand. We had been waiting for our shot at hearing from him in his new capacity for a l ittle while. The news about his appointment was a poorly kept secret even when Frederic Arnault was merely rumoured to be moving up the food chain. Well, that is all old news now because by the time you read this, Tornare will be the taking the reins at Hublot instead of getting to grips with TAG Heuer. Antoine Pin, former Managing Director of Watchmaking at Bvlgari, is the new CEO of TAG Heuer, effective September 1.

This conversation with Tornare took place during W WG earlier this year, and we did not run the story in Summer just because that issue would have been too TAG Heuer-centric (what with our cover being the Carrera Skipper). All of this is seriously inconvenient for this story, given that the man guiding us through TAG Heuer’s plans for the year is now facing a different challenge at Hublot. To some extent though, the changes do not make this story an exercise in futil ity. Tornare succeeded Frederic Arnault at TAG Heuer in a move that was widely seen as recognition of the great results he achieved at Zenith. In a year with few bright spots for LVMH watchmaking, Zenith did more than its share to part the clouds a bit.