A young and brillant man
Young…
A young and brillant man has been the CEO of Tag-HEUER since july 2020. The 25 years old (born in 1995) son of Bernard Arnault, owner of LVMH, succeeds Stéphane Bianchi. Mister Bianchi has been in charge of direction of Tag-HEUER since the iconic and successfull Jean-Claude Biver retired in 2019.
… but experienced
Despite his younth, Frédéric Arnault is an experienced guy. After graduating from Polytechnique, the most prestigious and difficult french engineering school, he founded his own start-up. With his two associates, he met at Polytchnique, he developped an easy paiement application called NEOS, he sold to Lyf Pay (controls by french banks BNP Paribas and Credit Mutuel). This mathematics and science enthusiast also worked in artificial intelligence research department of Facebook.
Finally, he joined in 2018 Tag-HEUER as chief strategy and digital officer and brilliantly led the developpement of the third iteration of the luxury Tag-HEUER connected. In january 2024 he takes the direction of the LVMH watch division to oversee all LVMH watch companies including Tag HEUER; he is replaced as Tag HEUER CEO by Julien Tornare former Zenith CEO .
In the footsteps of Jack Heuer
The son and the father
Haters could argue, Frédéric Arnault should thank “daddy” to offer him CEO position of one of the most prestigious swiss manufactuers. Others will point out that a such important responsability requires longer experience and an advanced age. Looking at the history of (Tag-)HEUER, Frederic Arnault respects the standart of a new HEUER boss. Edouard Heuer was 20 when he created the compagny in 1860. Then, from Edouard Heuer to his great-grandson Jack, all CEO were the son of the previous one and they were not older than 30, when they became the leader of the society.
Science and new technologies enthusiasts
Regarding closely, Frédéric Arnault and Jack Heuer share more than having inherited a big compagny from their father. The two guys are science lovers, formed in the best engineering school of their respective country. At ETH Zurick (also called “Ecole Polytechnique fédérale de Zurick”) J. Heuer studied electrical technologies and launched Electronical timekeeping division. He developped hight accurate time-keeping devices used by Ferrari in the 70’s. F.Arnault admits he is a geek who likes thinking and coding algorithms. As said previously, he is graduated of Polytechnique Paris before working for Facebook and then launching his own software business. Today his passion for new technologies, his skills, and his love for Tag-HEUER, give him opportunity to bring the brand to success and innovation as J. Heuer did it in his time.
Sport and timekeeping
Jack Heuer enjoys sport. By the way, how could he design the most sought-after sport watches and stopwatches in the world (carrera, monaco, monte-carlo) without practising sport ? The hight legibility monte-carlo stopwatch was developped after Jack Heuer experienced a misread on his autovia stopwatch during a rally car. Beside sport car driving, Jack Heuer is an excellent skier, where timekeeping has a key role and according his autobiography (the time of my life), skiing helps him to build a good network.
We can except Frédéric Arnault takes profits of his experience as hight-standart tennis player to improve the next Tag-HEUER connected iteration … or maybe this talented pianist choose to add special features for musicians. Futur is now in his hands.
Sources
- Lyf Pay bought NEOS : la tribune (fr)
- About F.Arnault : challenge (fr) / BFMTV (fr)
- F.Arnault interview : capital (fr) / forbes (fr) / letemps (fr)
- Tag-HEUER history : wikipedia (en) / Tag-HEUER (en) / book : “time of my life” by J.Heuer
- Appointments to LVMH’s Watches & Jewelry Division : LVMH
- Pictures used in the cover photo : Jack Heuer (artebellum), Frédéric Arnault (letemps) / stopwatch (ikonicstopwatch.com)
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