Q&a / Guido Terreni, CEO of Swiss watchmaker Parmigiani Fleurier on the women’s timepiece market, heading up a younger luxury brand, his China consumer strategy – and the Tonda PF GMT Rattrapante

Jun 20 , 2022

Guido Terreni, CEO of Swiss watchmaker Parmigiani Fleurier, talks about heading up the brand and where he intends to take it in Asia. Photo: Handout

Luxury CEOs

New for 2022 are the Tonda PF GMT Rattrapante, Tonda PF Skeleton, Tonda PF Tourbillon Platinum and – especially for ladies – the Tonda PF Micro-rotor

Once at Bulgari, today Terreni sees China as the key market, but elsewhere in Asia, Japan is seeing growing demand while the brand is now back in Singapore and Malaysia

Luxury veteran Guido Terreni, formerly president of Bulgari’s watch division, is now CEO of Swiss watchmaker Parmigiani Fleurier. Here he shares his insights on spearheading the brand and his plans for Asia.

What are your key innovations for 2022?

The Tonda PF GMT Rattrapante is for sure the one to mention as it expresses what Parmigiani Fleurier is: innovative with a world premiere, which remains nevertheless extremely pure, elegant and refined. Furthermore, I could mention the new Tonda PF Skeleton, equipped with a new calibre, or the Tonda PF Tourbillon Platinum. They all mirror the brand’s quest for rich minimalism.

What are the biggest changes since you joined the brand?

Since I took the helm, I felt the need to clarify the values that identify Parmigiani Fleurier, which are a deep cultural knowledge of watchmaking due to [the brand’s history in] restoration, and an understated style; and the customer we want to address, who is a refined, non-ostentatious purist. Consequently, we proceeded to reshape the collection and our products. This was a priority since the products are at the heart of a watch brand. This introspective exercise helped the teams to work quickly and with a clear direction, and we unveiled the Tonda PF [after] only seven months in September 2021.

Parmigiani Fleurier present the Tonda Automatic with diamonds. Photo: Handout

The response of press, trade and customers has been extremely positive, showing we are on the right track. The next steps? To keep building in that direction, bringing fundamental innovation with an understated and discrete approach.

Female buyers became a strong trend in horology in recent years – how is the segment for Parmigiani?

Indeed, ladies are getting more and more interested in watches and even more so if they’re mechanical. I think the aesthetic trends are also evolving. It is for sure going to be an important contributor to the growth of Parmigiani Fleurier, with the Tonda PF Micro-rotor, with its extraordinary comfort, being adopted by ladies too, especially in the rose gold version.

What are the advantages and challenges of helming a relatively new brand compared to some of the most historic watchmakers?