Jean-Claude Biver, CEO
Jean-Claude Biver is one of those rare men who have genuinely left their mark on Swiss watchmaking. He was born in Luxembourg on 20 September 1949, and when he was 10 his family moved to Switzerland, where he became a pupil at a school in Saint-Prex. He continued his education at the Collège de Morges, then at Lausanne University. He arrived in Le Brassus with his degree fresh in his pocket.
The birthplace of fine watchmaking, the Joux Valley was to have a profound effect on his life. He fitted in very quickly, living near a farm which, years later, would become the headquarters of Blancpain.
He had the extraordinary good fortune to spend a year as a trainee in all departments of the company before devoting himself to marketing and sales. During this year he had an opportunity to learn watchmaking on the inside at the very core of the watchmaker’s art. It was here that he developed his deep passion for the watchmaker’s craft and the watchmakers themselves.
In 1980 he left Audemars Piguet, thinking that he could do better and took on the job of product manager at Omega. Omega taught him the rules and constraints of a major group and a multinational brand. However, he soon felt nostalgic for the watchmaker’s art of the Joux Valley and he left Omega in 1982 to buy, with his friend Jaques Piguet, the Blancpain brand, which had lain dormant since 1956.
With the concept “Since 1735 there has never been a quartz Blancpain watch. And there never will be” he very quickly revived Blancpain and achieved turnover of CHF 50,000,000, making Blancpain one of the most respected traditional watch brands. After a few difficult years dogged by problems in his private life, he sold Blancpain in 1992 to the SSIH Group (now the Swatch Group), a sale which threw him into the arms of N.G.Hayek.
In this exalted company he was entrusted with the mission, as a member of the Management Steering Committee of the Swatch Group, of developing the marketing of the Omega brand. Once again he found himself spending ten years gaining experience at Omega. Omega’s revival, with new products and testimonials from the likes of Cindy Crawford, Michael Schumacher and Pierce Brosnan, was dazzling.
At the end of 2003 he decided to leave this major group and focus on the small and very idiosyncratic company of Hublot in Geneva. As soon as he set foot in Hublot, he began to promote the message of the brand: Fusion of the Watchmaker’s Art.
It was way back in 1980 that its founder, the ingenious Mr Carlo Crocco, launched the first fusion in watchmaking, combining natural rubber and gold. Since then, 25 years down the road, all brands have adopted rubber, from Breguet to Swatch, and there is no watchmaker that does not offer it as part of its collection.
Since June 2004 Jean-Claude Biver has been at the helm of Hublot, where he is CEO and President of the board of directors. He applied all of his scientific know-how to the marketing of Hublot and in April 2005 he had already successfully launched a revolutionary watch called the Big Bang. Since his arrival, Hublot has experienced spectacular growth, and expects for 2008 to achieve the sales of almost 10 times the sales of 2004.
As for distinctions, at the beginning of 2007, a survey conducted by “Business Montres” of journalists specialised in watchmaking elected Jean-Claude Biver “Best Watchmaking Manager” and “Best Communicator”. And the Big Bang won the “Best Watch" prize in the “Design Awards 2007” of “Wallpaper” magazine. At the end of 2007, he won 5th place in the “Entrepreneur of the Year” award organised by the Handelszeitung (a Swiss weekly economic magazine) – a list established by 100 journalists specialised in economic affairs, which places him in the Top Ten of Swiss entrepreneurs. At the end of November 2008, he has been awarded as “CEO of the year” while the “Premier Watches, jewellery and pens awards” at the Bahreïn fair.
