Roger Dubuis - Georges Kern Named CEO
WORLDTEMPUS - 7 October 2010
Since October 1, Georges Kern — current CEO of IWC — has also been the head of Roger Dubuis. Matthias Schuler, named CEO after Richemont bought Roger Dubuis in 2008, will now direct the European subsidiaries of Richemont as CEO Europe Shared Services, which also includes direction of Russia, Middle East, Africa, and Latin America.
The ex-COO of IWC, Schuler has completed the first task of making a manufacture operational that has grown very quickly by profiting from the excellent market conditions that prevailed before having been integrated into the luxury group. At the time Richemont acquired Roger Dubuis, it was considered in particular for its access as an industrial tool — exemplified by its ability to manufacture balance springs and to allow other Richemont brands such as Cartier the opportunity to acquire the Seal of Geneva.
It is the opinion of many connoisseurs that Kern's most urgent mission will be to continue reinforcing the path of the brand that was already initiated by Schuler: to streamline the collection while improving the general quality of its impressive manufacture movements. The most difficult element will be to continue retaining the reflection of the personality that this brand has always emanated, largely a product of former owner Carlos Dias.
Schuler was underway to strengthening the product message by streamlining the wide assortment of timepieces into three main lines, down from the ten Dias had maintained: Excalibur for the most technical and complicated pieces; Easy Diver for the sports watches; and Kingsquare with its "architectural" foundation and trendy coloring. Schuler also retained the jewelry line originally created in 2004 and planned to strengthen it, thanks in great part to a new team that includes a designer formerly employed by Chopard.
Of the 31 movements Roger Dubuis developed up to 2008, Schuler preferred to focus on only nine for use in the streamlined collection. And while the strategy of limited editions is one the brand retained, only the highly complicated watches continue to be limited to 28 pieces. Many complicated gold timepieces are limited to 88, while automatics and chronographs are issued in sets of something like 288. Cutting the number of references not only made the collection more accessible to potential customers, it leveled out production to an area aimed at 3,000 to 4,000 pieces annually.
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