For Nicola Andreatta, born in 1973, the measurement of time has never been very far away. “I was born in Como and raised in a family of Italian watchmakers, which explains why watches are my lifelong passion.” Nicola Andreatta began his career in 1998 with Art Concord Ltd. After sucessive stints at A.C. Services Ltd and Harwood Investments Ltd between 2003 and 2013, this agile manager became Chairman and CEO of his own watchmaking company, N.O.A Watches, based in the canton of Ticino, before joining Tiffany.
The watchmaking division of the luxury multinational, later bought out by LVMH, is located in Switzerland and Nicola Andreatta’s mission was to bring this long-neglected sector back onto an even keel. In doing so, with his background in economics, Andreatta couldn’t shake off the feeling that at heart he was an entrepreneur. “With the support of a multinational, a lot of things are easier than when you’re developing, manufacturing, and distributing watches in a small outfit.” And indeed, this proved to be the case for Roger Dubuis, wholly owned by the Richemont Group since 2016.
Nicola Andreatta’s first public appearance for the brand was at the SIHH in Geneva in January 2019, although he had in fact quietly replaced Jean-Marc Pontroué as CEO on 1 December 2018. It was not long before the new boss pulled off his first masterstroke: during the Geneva show, Roger Dubuis unveiled a unique Excalibur timepiece that drew inspiration from the Lamborghini Huracán. “Within 20 minutes, I’d sold the prototype over the phone to a collector who hadn’t even set eyes on it.” The interest aroused by high-end watchmaking art with skel- eton movements could have lured him into increasing production, but Nicola Andreatta has decided to do quite the opposite. “I actually intend to reduce output: this level of artistic craftsmanship can be achieved only for a small number of pieces. Roger Dubuis does not simply churn out wristwatches for random buyers”.
*Written by Gisbert Brunner
*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.
