After graduating top of his year at the Lyon 3A Higher School of Business and Development, Louis Ferla was in a position to secure any job he liked. Instead, though, he took a year to study Chinese full-time at the National Taiwan University. The attraction to all things Asian continued to direct his path for 17 years, and by the end of the 1990s, there was no shortage of evidence of his desire to immerse himself fully in the cultures to which he was drawn. Unsurprisingly, Louis Ferla’s career began in China, followed by Hong Kong: initially in retail, and then more directly in luxury goods and jewellery.
The new millennium brought with it the opportunity to join the Richemont Group. He found his way in through Dunhill, where he became Managing Director for Taiwan and Hong Kong, barely five years after completing his studies. It was a highly formative time, lasting from 2001 to 2006.
After that, a new era began, with a brand to which he was to devote another 11 years of his life – Cartier. Louis Ferla was very familiar with Taiwan, and the Richemont group flagship put him in charge of its subsidiary there. Three years later, he became Regional Director for a zone covering the Middle East, Africa and India, a position which put him on Cartier’s Executive Board from 2012 to 2017. During this period, he was also Chairman and CEO of Cartier China (2012-2015), before becoming International Director, Clients and Strategies (2015-2016).
When Louis Ferla returned to Europe – more specifically, Switzerland – it was to take up a new challenge. The position was in Geneva, at the oldest watchmaking Manufacture still in operation: Vacheron Constantin. Louis Ferla became Managing Director, Sales & Marketing in 2016, and then CEO in April 2017. One of his first tasks was to draw staff closer together in a shared vision dedicated to customer satisfaction – as well as repositioning and developing the brand’s offer, networks and digital initiatives.
*On the occasion of GMT Magazine and WorldTempus' 20th anniversary, we have embarked on the ambitious project of summarising the last 20 years in watchmaking in The Millennium Watch Book, a big, beautifully laid out coffee table book. This article is an extract. The Millennium Watch Book is available on www.the-watch-book.com, in French and English, with a 10% discount if you use the following code: WT2021.
