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FRANCAIS
Jean-Claude Biver
Jean-Claude Biver is one of few men who have left their mark on Swiss watchmaking . Born in Luxembourg on 20th September 1949, he moved to Switzerland with his family when he was ten. He started his school career at the Ecole de Saint Prex, continuing his studies at the Collège de Morges and then finishing his education at Lausanne University. After graduating with a business degree, he arrived in Le Brassus. Placed at the heart of the watchmaking world, the Vallée de Joux would have a profound impact on his life. Upon arrival, he moved in next to a farm which, some years later, would become the headquarters of Blancpain. He was lucky enough to benefit from a year’s “all-inclusive” apprenticeship at Audemars Piguet, before turning his attention to sales and marketing. During this period, watchmaking worked its way into his heart. From this was borne his passion for the craft and its practitioners.
In 1980, he left Audemars Piguet and undertook a new challenge as the “gold” “product manager” for Omega. This allowed him to understand the rules and constraints which are a necessary part of a large group, and of a multinational. But he very quickly felt a surge of nostalgia for the watchmaker’s art as practised in Vallée de Joux and he decided to leave Omega in 1982 to buy and relaunch the Blancpain brand, which had been inactive since 1956, with his friend Jacques Piguet.
“Since 1735, there has never been a quartz Blancpain watch. And there never will be”. This concept was the basis he used to very quickly get the brand back on track and raise its turnover to more than 50,000,000 CHF. In just a few years, the brand was competing with the biggest names in the watchmaking world. Jean-Claude Biver handed Blancpain over to the SSIH group (which has since become the Swatch Group) in 1992, where it came under the control of Nicolas George Hayek. He then joined the Executive Committee at the Swatch Group, where he was charged with developing the Omega brand. For the next 10 years, he presided over the brand’s impressive recovery, bolstered by new products and the support of stars such as Cindy Crawford, Michael Schumacher and Pierce Brosnan.
At the end of 2003, he decided to take a year’s sabbatical, but rapidly changed his mind in order to take control of a small, high profile business: Hublot Geneva.
