Julien Tornare is getting hands on at Hublot

Russell Sheldrake

“I’m more of a transformer”, Julien Tornare, the freshly minted CEO of Hublot, admitted to me late last week in a quick chat we had in a quiet corner of the brand’s London boutique. It was back in July of this year that the LVMH watch brands had a reshuffle at the top level, with Tornare, who had not long got his feet under the desk as CEO of TAG Heuer, was pulled over to Hublot to take on the same role after only being at TAG since the start of the year. Although the title may be the same, the task at hand could not be more different from one brand to the next.

To get a better understanding of this rather whirlwind year for Tornare, I wanted to ask him exactly how his energy levels have been. After all, he is known as being one of the most energetic and enthusiastic executives in the industry. “I’m a bit tired after two onboardings in one year, but I’ve never had so many ideas in my life”, he tells me, clearly showing that he may have had a busier year than most of us. He’s certainly not letting that stop him.

But why make the move so quickly from TAG Heuer to Hublot? “Frédéric Arnault asked me if I wanted to come across, and he said it was my choice. I asked him to give me 48 hours, and I realised at TAG it was a bit more of a continuity job than a transformation, as he [Frédéric Arnault] had already set it on the right path, and I’m more of a transformer. That’s what I really enjoy.” So Tornare, and the Arnaults, clearly think some changes need to be made at Hublot.

“There is a need for a transformation. To build the Hublot of the future”, says Tornare, and while he has only been in the job for three months, it’s clear that he wants to build this new Hublot with an incredibly hands-on approach. Almost immediately after starting, he called for a town hall meeting in the company’s cafeteria. I can’t imagine how the staff at Hublot felt at that time, given the current state of the industry seems to be getting slightly worse by the day. When a CEO calls for a meeting with the entire company, it can’t mean good things. Can it?

For Hublot and Tornare, it did indeed mean good things. This was the first step in his hands-on approach: “I want to keep on doing it on a regular basis moving forward. Whoever you are – a polisher, a sales assistant, a lawyer in the company – you need to get everyone on board with the same vision.” After Tornare laid out his plans to transform Hublot for the entire company, it was clear, speaking to those who were in that meeting, how well it was received.

While he may have big plans, he’s certainly not going to forget about the past, and what has built Hublot up to where it is now. Given that Ricardo Guadalupe has stayed on as Honorary President of the company, Tornare is making sure to get the most out of him while he can. “He spent 20 years in Hublot and did great things, he’s said his door is always open. In fact, when they were discussing who would replace him, he mentioned my name.”

Guadalupe is known for leading Hublot down a path of intense creativity, and engaging some of the world’s biggest brand ambassadors such as Usain Bolt, Novak Djokovic and Daniel Arsham. Whether or not we’ll see Tornare continue this trend is still unclear. He made sure to say that the releases we’re seeing at the moment are the ones he has inherited, so we’re unlikely to see one of his many, many ideas straight away. But it will be exciting to see what he has in store for us when we do. It might be too much to ask, even of someone with the high energy levels of Tornare, to have this new vision in place by Watches and Wonders next year, but you can be sure we’ll be there to find out how Tornare takes Hublot into the fair.

I was lucky enough to see Tornare at his first public Hublot event, as he launched the latest collaboration with tennis star Novak Djokovic. While he was quick to point out that he hadn’t really worked on the watch, it was clear from the outset that Tornare fit in perfectly on stage next to the 24-time Grand Slam winner, as the pair carried out a reaction drill in front of the crowd. It certainly seems as though Tornare doesn’t want to do a complete 180 on Guadalupe’s ambassador-heavy strategy, but his words do send the message that change is afoot under new leadership. Whether we’ll see a similar transformation to the one we saw him enact at Zenith is anyone’s guess.