PARIS — Longtime Bulgari chief govt officer Jean-Christophe Babin is including one other feather to his cap.
The Roman jeweler’s guardian group LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton on Friday named him chief govt officer of LVMH Watches, which contains the Hublot, Zenith and Tag Heuer manufacturers.
Babin, who has been CEO of Bulgari since 2013, will preserve his present position on the jeweler. Within the watch division, he succeeds Frédéric Arnault, who was named CEO of Loro Piana as a part of a raft of govt adjustments introduced earlier within the month.
In his new position, the Bulgari govt will proceed to report back to LVMH group managing director Stéphane Bianchi. Hublot’s Julien Tornare, Tag Heuer’s Antoine Pin and Benoit de Clerck, CEO of Zenith, will report back to Babin.
“Beneath the management of Frédéric Arnault, the watches division has undertaken a big transformation, together with the implementation of operational synergies between the group’s watchmaking maisons, and substantial work on the positioning and challenges of every of them,” Bianchi mentioned in an announcement shared first with WWD.
“I thank Frédéric and am happy to see this dynamic proceed with the appointment of Jean-Christophe Babin, who will leverage his entrepreneurial spirit, vitality, and distinctive management qualities to serve the sustainable and bold development of the division,” he continued.
The French group’s watch division was created in January 2024. Babin’s roadmap is to proceed “constructing and orchestrating the event and elevation methods” of the three manufacturers now below his purview, the group mentioned.
Watchmaking is a discipline that’s acquainted to Babin, who joined LVMH in 2000 as CEO of Tag Heuer, a place he held for 12 years, earlier than shifting to his present position at Bulgari in early 2013.
Throughout his tenure, the Italian model continued to burnish its heritage as a jeweler whereas additionally rising right into a severe watchmaker that commonly breaks world data for the thinnest watches with numerous problems.
