President & CEO of Blancpain Marc Hayek

A passion for the water, which is radically part of Blancpain’s epic plan, but which would have risked remaining submerged, were it not for its current President and CEO, Marc Hayek. «I learned about the genesis of the Fifty Fathoms» Hayek tells us, «after joining this great family and having shed light on the pioneering aspect of the brand, is one of the things that makes me most proud». The Fifty Fathoms is a model capable of breaking the taboo of age because it avoids flaunting itself and allows for it to be discovered in all its glory. It’s an incredibly emotional product. Despite the mechanical content that every piece of Haute Horlogerie brings, «emotion» «passion» and «authenticity» are the words Hayek says most frequently. «The difference with consumer electronic goods is that each watch has an individual soul and story from the moment it is created, where a series of handmade steps make it unique, because that’s what people are looking for: emotion. You can have the most precise and high-performance object on your wrist, but if the design doesn’t impress you, it will never make you happy. Buying a watch means thinking about the next generation, because it will be handed down to someone you love. That’s why I believe Haute Horlogerie has a duty to make the entire production cycle sustainable and to save the world, as we do through the Blancpain Ocean Commitment, a program that has helped double the extent of marine protected areas». As President of Breguet, Jaquet Droz and Glashütte Original, luxury brands in the Swatch Group galaxy of which Blancpain itself is a part, Marc Hayek has a privileged perspective on the aftermath of the past year. «We have been through dramatic moments, but it has also been interesting because it allowed for an acceleration of aspects related to technology. The way of working has changed: a large segment of appointments we make today are made digitally and we aim to remain virtual in certain areas in the future. Even before the Covid outbreak we were working on a big project related to e-commerce and the results will be unveiled in the second half of this year. We have been developing digital presentations enabling us to be closer to the final consumer on a more regular basis. This was a process that was already underway and of which Swatch Group anticipated by leaving Baselworld in 2019. It will take a couple of years to get back to normal, but we have had some encouraging signs: many people went out and bought as soon as they had the chance. Particularly throughout Europe».