A new era begins at Richemont
Cyrille Vigneron steps down as CEO of Cartier on Sept. 1, parent Richemont announced this week. That’s six months earlier than the Frenchman planned to retire, several industry sources said. Miss Tweed had reported in December that Vigneron was preparing to exit next year. Richemont Chairman and controlling shareholder Johann Rupert saw things differently.
Many people within the Richemont group and Cartier were shocked to hear the news. They expected Vigneron to continue running Richemont’s biggest brand and cash cow until next year. “This was a surprise,” one senior manager who recently left Cartier said. “We all knew he was going to leave but not so quickly.”
Tensions were running high between Vigneron and the South African billionaire. They clashed regularly and did not see eye to eye on several aspects of the business, as Miss Tweed wrote late last year. Vigneron is an aesthete, a Japanophile and a lover of philosophy, music and literature. Rupert is more into testosterone-driven passions such as collecting vintage cars and buying wild beasts in South Africa. Vigneron is an intellectual who likes to express himself with abstract images – which Rupert complains few people understand - while the chairman of Richemont is widely known to be rough and verbally abrasive which can strike fear into his underlings.
Rupert internally denies there has been any friction between the two men, but people close to the chairman and Vigneron have witnessed it, Miss Tweed found out.
START NOW
Since Rupert had found a replacement for Vigneron he decided to move to replace him immediately, several sources close to the group said. Richemont announced this week the nomination of Louis Ferla as Cartier’s new CEO. Ferla takes command of the world’s No. 1 jeweler as the luxury industry is going through a downturn, with Chinese consumption hit especially hard. There is no time to lose to get Ferla hitting the ground running.
Ferla, who ran Vacheron Constantin for seven years, is considered among his peers to be a strong, commercially minded manager whose mission will be to continue building Cartier’s desirability and brand equity following on from the legacy of Vigneron.
Ferla won Rupert’s trust by successfully developing Vacheron Constantin. In the last fiscal year, he won “the CEO of the year” prize for bringing Vacheron Constantin’s annual sales to €1 billion. Rupert and other Richemont managers fêted him in the chairman’s homeland in South Africa.
“Rupert decided time was up for Vigneron,” one of the sources said. “But he’s allowing Vigneron to save the face and stay on board to look after cultural projects that are dear to his heart like a Cartier exhibition he has been planning in Japan for a long time.” Several sources predict Vigneron will quietly retire next year.
They also think Rupert agreed for him to be well paid again this year in return for accepting to leave early with a handsome pension. In Richemont’s annual report for the year to March 31, there is no mention of Vigneron’s remuneration or that of Nicolas Bos, the former Van Cleef & Arpels boss, who became the group’s CEO on June 1st with extended powers.
Richemont CFO Burkhart Grund received 9.5 million Swiss francs for the year to March 31, while outgoing CEO Jérôme Lambert received 7.11 million Swiss francs, the annual report says. It’s expected that Bos and Vigneron received total remuneration of a similar order – as they have in the past - but since they are no longer part of the executive committee, which they left nearly three years ago, the group no longer needs to make public how much money they make.
No doubt Rupert consulted with Bos about Ferla’s nomination and Bos thought it made sense to announce the change quickly and the appointment of his own replacement at the same time. On Tuesday, Richemont announced Ferla’s promotion and the nomination of Catherine Rénier as the new CEO of Van Cleef & Arpels (VCA).
In the first sentence of the statement about her appointment, it says Rénier will report to Bos – making clear that she will implement his vision and strategy. Hence, Bos will indirectly have oversight of VCA even though he is now in charge of the whole group. This is fundamentally a good thing since Bos has turned VCA into a jewelry powerhouse and knows it well after spending 24 years at the French jeweler. Hence, one should expect more of the same at VCA.
Bos’ influence over the group’s key players is not new. He was the one who recommended Rénier became CEO of Jaeger-LeCoultre in 2018. It was again Bos who recommended Nicolas Luchsinger who in February was appointed CEO of Buccellati, Richemont’s rising star. Luchsinger used to be in charge of VCA in Asia. He has a rare talent for retail – which will be key for Buccellati’s expansion. He’s also genuinely passionate about jewelry, colleagues say.
SPREADSHEET JUNKIES
Industry sources expect that Bos will progressively remove from power top executives who are known for being “spreadsheet junkies” with little sensibility about product design and connection to the world we live in. Jérôme Lambert, Richemont’s former CEO who is regarded as a financier, has already been demoted and given back his old job of chief operating officer.
Another manager on Bos’s target list could be Emmanuel Perrin, currently CEO of Richemont’s Specialist Watchmakers division and chairman of the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie, which helps organize the annual trade fair Watches & Wonders at Palexpo in Geneva.
Perrin is the nephew of Alain-Dominique Perrin, a legend at Richemont who was the group’s CEO and led Cartier for many years. ADP, as people in the industry call the 81-year-old former executive, remains an influential figure. He still works as a consultant for Richemont “ensuring that matters related to communication, products and distribution are appropriate and consistent with the identity and strategy of the Group’s Maisons” and for which in the year ending March 31, 2024 he was paid 4.5 million Swiss francs, according to Richemont’s latest annual report.
ADP lobbied hard for his nephew to be given the top job at Cartier. However, Emmanuel Perrin is not the most loved boss at Richemont and has been developing a climate of fear among the managers of the group’s specialist watchmakers, say people who spoke on condition of anonymity. Miss Tweed has been blacklisted by Richemont for three years in part for writing this.
Bos is aware of Perrin’s reputation and may well replace him with someone who is more a “people person,” and who like Luchsinger is passionate about products and knows how to tell a good story, say people inside the group. For more than two years now, Richemont has not replied to Miss Tweed’s requests for comment.
Bos, who marries both the left and right brain skills of creativity and business acumen, should also help the development of Richemont’s fashion brands. On June 24, he came to the opening of Chloé’s refurbished boutique on rue Saint-Honoré to show his support. Hosted by the brand’s new designer Chemena Kamali and CEO Laurent Malecaze, the event was a success, attended many important fashion journalists and buyers.
Bos will also likely help the growth of Alaïa which this year did not take part in the fall-winter Haute Couture Fashion Week in Paris. Sources close to Alaïa say the brand recently renewed its contract with designer Pieter Mulier who was interviewed by LVMH to replace Hedi Slimane at Celine, as Miss Tweed reported in April.
Executives at Richemont say behind closed doors that the parent company has taken greater control over the internal affairs of each brand, even big ones like Cartier. Executives from the group pull strings on important matters such as finance and human resources, limiting the power of executives at the brands themselves. It’s possible that Bos reverses this trend as it has been a demotivating factor for many managers since it disempowers them and limits their ability to take initatives and pursue ambitious projects, current and former staff at Richemont told Miss Tweed.
CARTIER
Once Ferla starts at Cartier, executives expect a shake up of personnel there too. Among those who could leave soon is Renaud Litré, Cartier’s Chief Commercial Officer, who like Perrin, was angling for top job. “Ferla is probably not going to keep Litré as he will want people who are loyal to him,” one former senior Cartier manager said.
Litré created his own barony within Cartier. His allies include Grégoire Blanche, who is in charge of Europe, and Pauline Novara, a commercial director based in Geneva, where Richemont’s headquarters are located. If Litré leaves, their career progression may take more time.
Regarding the Farfetch tie-up and use of its e-commerce platform and technology – which fell through last year due to the company’s financial collapse, Litré was in direct contact with Rupert and Lambert, bypassing Vigneron, insiders tell Miss Tweed. Modernizing Cartier’s e-commerce platform will be one of Ferla’s top priorities. Cartier, which is estimated to generate more than €10 billion in annual sales, makes more than €1 billion online and its biggest Internet boutique is in the United States. Hence the stakes online are high.
Ferla has solid experience at Cartier. Before Vacheron Constantin, he spent more than 11 years at the French jeweler, where he was International Director Clients and Business Development and a member of the executive committee. Ferla is an affable man, loved by his teams at Vacheron Constantin and is known for taking decisions quickly.
Ferla is likely to preserve several things Vigneron changed at Cartier such as making sure every major boutique looks different and the creation a club of Grand Vendeurs, those who focus on selling pieces costing several millions to the ultra-rich. Vigneron has given them the freedom to build relations with billionaires, spend time on their yachts and ski with them in high-end resorts. Cartier owes its success not only due to the popularity of its best-sellers such as Juste un Clou, Love and Trinity but also to the success of its Grands Vendeurs selling high jewelry pieces which can cost upwards of several tens of millions of euros. Vigneron has also introduced more accessibly priced products for the brand’s iconic lines and these are likely to stay in the current difficult trading environment.
TRINITY
On the product side of things at Cartier, knowing how risk-averse Rupert is and how Bos has been managing VCA, it’s likely that Ferla will continue Vigneron’s strategy which has been to focus on regularly putting out new versions of best-sellers and classics. This year, Cartier introduced a new version of the Trinity ring for its 100th anniversary.
The new version of the famous ring called Trinity cushion is made up of three intermingling bands, one in pink gold, one white gold and one yellow gold, which are square instead of round. The Trinity ring was first commissioned by French writer and film-maker Jean Cocteau in 1924 for him and his lover, the young writer Raymond Radiguet, famous for his book Le diable au corps. Cocteau wore it on his pinky.
Vigneron has pruned Cartier of products that did not sell well and invested in the constant renewal of iconic products, both in jewelry and watches. For example,Cartier’s Drive watch, launched in 2016, turned out to be a commercial flop and is no longer available in most of the brand’s boutiques.
Recently, Cartier has successfully launched new versions of the Tank and the Pasha watch as well as a new model of the Baignoire with an oval dial called Baignoire Bangle which is fixed on a gold bracelet and not a traditional watch strap making it a jewelry watch. Promoted by Lou Doillon, daughter of the late actress and singer Jane Birkin, Baignoire Bangle is a new best-seller regularly out of stock, Cartier retailers say.
Jewelry and watches, commonly referred to as “hard luxury” are different from fashion or “soft luxury” in that success depends slow evolution. If in fashion consumers expect new designs and collections every three to six months, in jewelry and watches things need to move much more slowly. What works is focusing on best-sellers. Putting out too many new collections risks blurring a brand’s message. More of the same is what consumers want, just with a new twist, experts say.
The only place where jewelers and watchmakers can freely express their creativity is with one-of-a-kind or limited edition pieces. That’s where the innovation is concentrated and it’s great for a brand’s image and desirability. Some brands present their new High Jewelry collections just before or during Haute Couture week in Paris.
Under the reign of the new triumvirat composed of Bos, Ferla and Rénier, expect more changes from a corporate culture point of view than from a product collection point of view. That’s actually good news. When a recipe works, why change it?