Time to Play

François-Henry BennaHmias injects His witty and sHarp personality into tHe Business side oF audemars piguet. tHe passionate ceo speaks oF tHe company’s past and present to cHris andre

usiness with attitude is what separates the winners from the rest of the players on the field. Such is the case with Audemars Piguet, a leading Swiss watchmaker that has been around since 1875. The last four years signaled what is perhaps the independent luxury house’s most transformative period, from the way they slimmed down the novelties back in 2013 to taking the world by storm with innovative timepieces today.

The proud captain steering the brand through this daring journey is none other than the house’s incumbent CEO, François-Henry Bennahmias. During his last visit to Jakarta, he unabashedly wields the latest Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar Yellow Gold on his wrist. That excessive golden luster is certainly an acquired taste, but it does find some resonance with how Bennahmias carries himself and how the house is currently doing: with style and success.

Bennahmias’ get-down-to-business way of talking, peppered with witty banter and generous amounts of laughter, lights up the room, and the house’s most exclusive pieces to date, not excluding the one-of-a- kind Royal Oak Double Balance Wheel Openworked watch, certainly adds fuel to the fire as we converse about men’s timepieces. It makes sense then why Bennahmias, who has worked for the brand for over 22 years and held the post of CEO since 2012, is the right man for the job, and why Audemars Piguet stands tall despite the recent economic slowdown. As a matter of fact, the future, in his eyes, seems brighter than ever. Chris Andre: Given the current economic slowdown, how’s Audemars Piguet doing? François-Henry Bennahmias: When there’s a crisis, it’s not that everything stops. I’ve got an art analogy. Say, Picasso had a thousand paintings and the art world is booming. So, the first painting would sell for a crazy lot of money, and the thousandth would sell as well but not for quite as much as the first one. If the art world shrinks due to a crisis, the top 250 will still sell—and perhaps for even more money—but the last 750 would either not sell or go for less money. It’s the same thing in the watch world. There are hundreds of watch companies, but I do believe today that we’re in the top five brands that are still performing well. When