Industry News – New CEO at Tudor Watches, Philippe Peverelli to move to Rolex

After the departure of the Head of Products and Marketing in 2015, Davide Cerrato, now Head of Watches at Montblanc, it is another surprising piece of news coming from Tudor Watches, as its CEO, Philippe Peverelli is about to move to others functions into the Rolex Group (full owner of Tudor Watches), to run Roledeco (merchandising division of Rolex Group) and to be replaced soon.

When arriving at Tudor Watches in 2009, the mission of Philippe Peverelli as new CEO was simple: waking up the sleeping beauty… or what was at that time a sleeping ugly. Created in 1926 by Hans Wilsdorf (also founder of Rolex), Tudor Watches had a unique vocation: selling watches with a level of quality worthy of the Rolex name but in a lower price range (which is now in-between 1,500 and 4,000 Euros), by using out-sourced movements – in order to stay away from Rolex markets. Some great sports watches apart (mainly the Submariners from the 1960s and some chronographs from the 1970s), the brand never really achieved success. In fact, before Mr. Peverelli arrived, the brand was mainly sold in China (around 95% of the turnover at that time).

The goal of Philippe Peverelli was to awaken the brand and to bring it back under the spotlights, as an independent Maison (and not just being cheaper Rolex watches). Everything started with the launch of the Heritage collection with, in 2010, the introduction of the Heritage Chrono, the first of a collection with vintage-inspired look, then followed by the actual hit of Tudor, the Heritage Black Bay (introduced first in 2012, in its burgundy edition). Between 2010 and 2015, the collection grew with several other Heritage watches, such as the Chrono Blue, the Ranger or the other editions of the Black Bay. On the other hand, Peverelli and his teams developed several modern watches, as the Pelagos or the FastRider Chrono. The pinnacle of his career at Tudor – and what propelled Tudor as even more independent – was the introduction in 2015 of the first in-house movement of the brand, in the North Flag (and now used in the Pelagos and the Black Bay).

Tudor Watches CEO Philippe Peverelli at the GPHG (source – GPHG)

The other success of Philippe Peverelli concerns the sales and the development of new markets. While the brand was mainly sold in China, it is now visible and collectible all around the world, with a strong presence in USA, Europe or Asia, with less than half of the sales now realized in Great China (on a production estimated to 250,000 pieces). After 7 years at the head of Tudor Watches, we can clearly call his career a success. It seems that his mission is accomplished for the mother company Rolex, as Philippe Peverelli will join, at the end of spring (no date defined yet), the Crown, as head of Roledeco, subsidiary that handles store design and visual merchandising for both Rolex and Tudor.

This position at Roledeco, which was occupied in the past by Daniel Riedo (now CEO of Jaeger-LeCoultre), won’t feel totally unknown for Mr. Peverelli, which had a similar role at Chopard between 1996 and 2008 – he was in charge of the development of stores for the brand, which passed from 8 official boutiques in 1998 to 126 of them in 2006. This experience could possibly be the reason why Jean-Frédéric Dufour, CEO of Rolex, asked the future ex-CEO of Tudor to move. His successor, whose name is not yet known, will be in charge of a healthy company.

Sources: Le Temps – BusinessMontres