How To Spot The Horological Stars Of The Future!

Sincere Fine Watches CEO Ong Ban tells us how to spot the horological stars of the future. He spoke with us on the occasion of the (re)launch of the SHH store in Marina Bay Sands

- Ashok Soman

Time tells many tales, as the saga of Sincere Fine Watches demonstrates. This magazine has been tracking some of these stories, intermittently, over the last 20 years but we have noted one constant: current CEO Ong Ban. He has been in this trade for longer than this magazine has existed - longer than Heart Media as a company, in fact. The fact that Ong has been involved in the watch retail business for so long is not remarkable, in itself. What sets him apart from most of his peers is that he has been with Sincere Fine Watches the entire time, from its heyday as a family-operated business, through all its subsequent ups and downs, and now as part of Cortina Holdings. He rose up through the sales and operational fronts to eventually become CEO in 2008.

One constant in Ong Ban's journey is his passion and enthusiasm for watchmaking, and cultivating an interest in fine watches. One need only begin to wax lyrical on timepieces to get his eyes to light up, if only for the chance to talk about some detail about the watches at the new SHH boutique at Marina Bay Sands. Ong calls this boutique the "forever home," for SHH and it represents for him the core competencies that have always distinguished Sincere Fine Watches.

From the Greubel Forsey Architecture to the Lang & Hyne Georg, these are timepieces that require more than glossy magazine advertisements and display cases; these days, such rare timepieces are likely to be spoken for before they arrive in Singapore. The retail operation needs a person with a certain measure of sang-froid to deal with competing collectors, as well as a measure of gravitas to perhaps get these collectors to agree to display watches that they have bought in their stores. Think of it in the same way as some high-end car dealerships, where some buyers are happy to park their cars at the showrooms.