2024-01-11 23:00:01
A page turns. In six years, Julien Tornare put Zenith back on the path to success, a mission that some considered impossible as the manufacture had been searching for 15 years. The man leaves Zenith to take charge of TAG Heuer
The job description would have discouraged more than one. When he took charge of Zenith in the spring of 2017, Julien Tornare was faced with a wall. We must relaunch Zenith, re-motivate the troops, stop the drain of skills, review the product strategy, overhaul distribution, brand positioning, reactivate innovation and offer ourselves another reality than the inevitable El Primero movement. In two words: take everything back, or almost. Except heritage and spirit. And it is on these two pillars that Julien Tornare patiently rebuilt Zenith.
Tandem
Many gave him the loser from his first hours. The man is a pure Richemont product (17 years at Vacheron Constantin), quite far from the culture of LVMH which owns Zenith. It is chosen by Jean-Claude Biver, who directs the watchmaking department. An appointment which is as much a blessing as a fate: being put on the rails by Mr. Biver opens a highway, but it is a heavy sponsorship, a shadow from which it is sometimes difficult to escape, as the man is so present and powerful. So much so that during the first 18 months of his mandate, many wondered regarding the real captain of Zenith: Julien Tornare as CEO, or Jean-Claude Biver behind the scenes?
Julien Tornare © Zenith
In the field
The reality is somewhere in between. At this time, Mr. Biver provides the impetus. Mr. Tornare learns, deploys, takes the blows, without ever losing his infectious smile and energy. The man is hard-working, in the noble sense of the term: a hands-on, hard-working, pragmatic CEO. Each sale is earned in store, one by one. He meets collectors and dives back into the archives. A demanding but necessary background work: upon its arrival, Zenith weighed barely 80 million (double today). A colossus with feet of clay, an illustrious name but a dwarf on the market.
Julien Tornare will take two years to stabilize the Zenith boat and stop its fall. But the man is battered by current events. After starting out in the shadow of Jean-Claude Biver, who ended up leaving Zenith willy-nilly to turn around TAG Heuer, he benefited from the 50th anniversary of the El Primero movement in 2019…before diving into the COVID era. During this new stop, Julien Tornare refines his strategy: above all, do not weaken El Primero to restore Zenith, but gain strength on both at the same time to bring them back to equal strength.
Grenier Charles Vermot © Zenith
Internal and external work
To achieve this, Julien Tornare does not fall into the classic luxury trap: very exclusive products, extravagant complications, skyrocketing prices, unaffordable stars. He even does the opposite. In Le Locle, it deploys horizontal management. It develops employee pride in working at Zenith. The CEO spends a minimum of time in his office, a maximum in the field. He was one of the first to establish parity in his collections, even going so far as to eliminate the distinction between “men’s watches” and “women’s watches”.
Real fake start-up
The approach has sometimes been described as “start-up spirit”. It’s a bit quick to forget that the start-up in question, Zenith, belongs to a group worth 80 billion euros. Its striking power is phenomenal and Zenith benefits from it. Already, to act in the long term, without there being an obligation of result at 12 months, but rather at three years – or even four years “thanks” to COVID.
Then, through R&D that LVMH shares with TAG Heuer. This joint laboratory will allow Zenith to offer very technical products, in particular double escapement movements that the Le Locle manufacture would probably not have been able to design or produce alone.
Manufacture © Zenith
New ranges
But Julien Tornare was above all able to insert his vision into a creative product strategy. While his mentor Jean-Claude Biver had initially focused on the return of the very classic Elite, the CEO prefers to change the direction towards sport. Two collections are being created: Defy and Chronomaster. And since the name “El Primero” is no longer visible, Julien Tornare decides, for his fans, to offer for sale El Primero “new old stock” from the 70s, revised, certified, sold on the web. At the same time, the Skyline and Revival ranges were created to ride the “sport-chic” wave of the 70s with strong Genta accents. Without forgetting the return of the Pilot line, Zenith being the only brand in the world to have the word “Pilot” for one of its collections.
Repositioning
Today, Zenith has acquired a separate status: old but young in perception; manufacturing, but affordable, even if prices have soared recently. The brand is healthy and well positioned, with a still low rating on the secondary market – but this is also what makes it still accessible. The CEO also emphasizes that upon his arrival, the average age of the buyer Zenith was 46 years old, compared to 37 years old when he left. He, at 50, is now turning to TAG Heuer.
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