News Frédéric Arnault appointed CEO of the LVMH Watches

Frédéric Arnault has been appointed CEO of LVMH Watches, a newly created role that oversees Hublot, Tag Heuer, and Zenith. the luxury conglomerate said in a statement on Friday. His appointment is effective since 1 January and he reports to Stéphane Bianchi, CEO of LVMH’s watches and jewellery division.

It marks a significant broadening of Arnault’s responsibilities. The 29-year-old son of luxury titan Bernard Arnault joined Tag Heuer in 2017, and became CEO of the watch brand in 2020. At Tag Heuer, he made bold moves, including signing a strategic long-term partnership with Porsche, streamlining the distribution, elevating the positioning notably by introducing higher-end products, featuring lab-grown diamonds on watches, dabbling in NFTs and injecting humour into campaigns. It paid off. According to Morgan Stanley estimates, Tag Heuer sales were CHF 729 million (€784 million) in 2022, up from CHF 682 million (€733 million) in 2021.

As part of the division’s management reshuffle, Julien Tornare, CEO of Zenith since 2017, is appointed CEO of Tag Heuer while Benoit De Clerck succeeds Tornare as CEO of Zenith. De Clerck joins from Richemont where he was chief commercial officer of Panerai. Tornare, De Clerck and Ricardo Guadalupe, CEO of Hublot, will all report to Arnault.