January 28, 2025 • 49 mins
Ilaria Resta is the CEO of Audemars Piguet, one of the world’s oldest and most exclusive luxury watch brands, renowned for its tradition of craftsmanship and innovation. Before leading AP, Ilaria served as President and CEO of Firmenich, a family-owned Swiss company that creates perfumes for iconic brands like Saint Laurent, Gucci, and Hugo Boss, with annual revenues exceeding $3 billion. Her career began at Procter & Gamble, where she spent 23 years shaping some of the most recognizable consumer brands, including Tide, Pantene, and Head & Shoulders. Born and raised in Naples, Italy, Ilaria’s journey from modest beginnings to the pinnacle of luxury and leadership exemplifies her values of resilience, learning, and leaving a meaningful legacy. Ilaria offers invaluable insights into leadership, breaking barriers, and the art of building lasting relationships.
Timestamps:
00:00 – Introduction: Ilaria Resta and the Legacy of Audemars Piguet
02:12 – Growing Up in Naples: Traditional Values and Early Influences
06:45 – The Pursuit of Excellence: Learning Feedback as a Gift
12:00 – Falling in Love with Perfume: A Passion for Beauty and Design
15:10 – Winning a Marketing Contest: From Financial Mathematics to Marketing
17:44 – Lessons from 23 Years at Procter & Gamble: Decision-Making and Leadership
22:51 – The Call from Audemars Piguet: Joining a New Industry
27:27 – Mystery Shopping for Audemars Piguet: Testing the Customer Experience
33:01 – Following a Legendary CEO: Balancing Legacy with Innovation
37:57 – The Mission of Audemars Piguet: Innovation, Quality, and Client-Centricity
42:26 – Onboarding at AP: Learning from the Ground Up
Resources:
Ilaria's LinkedIn
Audemars Piguet Website
Audemars Piguet Instagram
Coaching and Staying Connected:
1-on-1 Coaching | Instagram | YouTube | TikTok | LinkedIn
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ilaria Resta (00:00):
We are in a business of relationship and
(00:02):
passion for quality, because themoment we create a relationship,
this relationship lasts formany, many years and beyond you.
We receive watches of the dateshundreds years ago, and we
service them and we repair them.
We take pictures because wediscover movements that we are
not producing anymore. And youenter in our family. And we call
our clients the AP family, mostof them, because they really
(00:24):
start getting to know us. Weknow their collection. We can
curate it. The reason why weacquired our distribution
network, which is quite anexception in the watchmaking
industry, is exactly for thereason to invest in the
relationship you Randy,
Randall Kaplan (00:43):
Welcome to In Search of Excellence, where we
meet entrepreneurs, CEOs,entertainers, athletes,
motivational speakers andtrailblazers of excellence, with
incredible stories from allwalks of life. My name is
Randall Kaplan. I'm a serialentrepreneur, venture capitalist
and the host of In Search ofExcellence, which I started to
motivate and inspire us toachieve excellence in all areas
(01:04):
of our lives. My guest today isalaria resta. Alaria is the CEO
of aadmar, PGA, one of theoldest and most exclusive watch
brands in the world, prior to APas it's known in the watch
industry. Ilaria was thepresident and CEO of firminich,
120 year old, family ownedcompany in Switzerland that
creates perfumes for manybrands, including Saint Laurent,
(01:25):
Gucci, Hugo Boss, and which hasannual revenues of more than $3
billion and a market value as ofthe soaring of $27.7 billion
prior to that, she spent 23years at Procter and Gamble,
most recently as senior vicepresident of its North American
hair care division, where shehelped create and build iconic
brands including Thai Panteneand head and shoulders. Valaria,
(01:48):
thanks for being here. Welcometo In Search of Excellence.
Thank you Randy for inviting solet's start at the beginning. He
grew up in Naples, Italy, which,for those people don't know, is
the third largest city in Italy,behind Rome and Milan. Your
parents didn't go to college.
They spoke Italian only, andthey had never left the country.
So talk to us about what yourparents were like and the
(02:09):
influence they had on yougrowing up. Well, they were
Ilaria Resta (02:12):
the typical family from Napoli, extremely
traditional, a family that usedto live pretty much in the same
neighborhood. So my mom was ateacher for me, or to say,
kindergarten teacher, and myfather was working first as a
teacher and then as as asupporting in a hospital. So I
(02:35):
grew up in a family that wasvery, very traditional, very
traditional values and not muchcuriosity to leave the country
to speak new languages. I didn'tknow anything outside of my
neighborhood existed for many,many years. What? What did your
father do for a profession? Somy father worked in the
Information Systems forhospitals. So it was managing
(02:56):
the data and the it for ahospital. He was a programmer,
or he was a programmer, yes. So
Randall Kaplan (03:04):
you were born naturally hard on yourself in
kindergarten. You got frustratedwhen you weren't coloring
perfectly within the lines. Oh,my
Ilaria Resta (03:12):
God, you know everything about me. Yes, I was
always and this is what my momtold me, of course, always
extremely high, demanding ofmyself on my standards of
precision and excellence. And Iremember the teacher. That's
what my mom told me. The teachercomplained with my mom that I
was too slow in giving back mydrawings because I was aiming at
(03:34):
perfection. So I kept onthrowing away redoing it until
it was perfect at three yearsold. We
Randall Kaplan (03:40):
all have dreams when we're a kid. I remember
when I was five or six yearsold, of course, I want to be a
professional baseball player, afootball player. What were your
dreams and when was the firstdream you had when you're
thinking about your profession?
It's
Ilaria Resta (03:52):
funny because in reality, the dream started very
late in my life. My I was verymuch short term focused. I
wanted to have amazing grades atschool. I wanted to excel at
drawing. I wanted to excel incertain areas I was involved to.
And then all of a sudden, Irealized there was a world
outside of Napoli, and my dreamwas to travel. So very soon it
(04:15):
became clear to me, whatever jobthat would take me out of
Napoli, Italy and make mediscover would be my my dream. A
Randall Kaplan (04:22):
lot of us, when we are later in life, we learn
certain things, and one of thosethings is to really acknowledge
the importance of feedback. Butyour parents taught you the
feedback at a young age, that itwas a true gift. What was that
like, and how did learning thatat an early age influence your
future
Ilaria Resta (04:40):
success. When my parents were always supportive
of me, especially in education,I had very good grades at
school, but every time I could,I came home, my parents were
asking me, why not the maximumscore? Why didn't you get even
more than that? And it was nota. Name a demand for perfection.
(05:01):
It was really they wanted tounderstand what more could have
done to be better. And that wasa great question, because it was
I never felt the pressure.
Actually felt the desire toreally get to the to the top of
my grade constantly.
Randall Kaplan (05:17):
I think again, when we think about our future,
I collected baseball cards as akid. And you see these cards and
said, All right, I want to be abaseball player. You collected,
well, your mom eater gave you agift. Talk about the perfume
bottle on the east if I'm sayingthat greatly by Cherelle that
was on your desk, and how thatinfluenced your teacher as your
career. I was
Ilaria Resta (05:38):
passionate about beauty in general, beautiful
things. And maybe it's because Iwas into drawing. Very early in
my life, I spent my free timedrawing. I'm not particularly
good and I'm not a miss artist.
So the word of art didn't missanything with me not doing it
professionally, but I wasextremely involved in visual
arts and and that led me to likebottles, shapes, colors. So I
(06:01):
got into the world of perfume,attracted by the colors of
bottle and cache. I had thisbeautiful type of ceramic bottle
with the white and rose pinkroses. And I just, I just, it
was my first perfume i openedand I smell when I was very
young. And that was my my giftfor my birthday. And ever since,
(06:22):
my mom felt I was in love withfrequencies, which I ultimate,
ultimately I became, and shekept on giving me gift of
fragrances over, over the
Randall Kaplan (06:32):
years. Several years ago, I was with my
daughter in New York. We weremadness for a garden, watching
Billy and Joel. And Billy Joelwas up on stage, and he said, I
wouldn't be here, but for mymusic teacher, when I was 14
years old, they named thisteacher, and their teacher, his
90th birthday, is still living.
So he had everybody, 20,000people seeing him happy
birthday. I had a teacher namedDon Corwin. Sophomore year of
(06:55):
high school. I took an econclass and that, that flipped me.
I said, All right, that's what Iwant to do. We read all these
profiles about CEOs. I grew upin Detroit, so we'd read about
CEO of GM Chrysler back then wasa huge thing. And I said, Okay,
that's, that's, that's what Iwant to do, talk to us about
your high school teacher and theinfluence she had on your life.
(07:20):
So I
Ilaria Resta (07:22):
went to study at least classical languages. So I
studied ancient Greek, Latin,Latin, and I avoided English,
big time and any other languagethat was modern. I was really
fascinated by going back to theto the ancient times and and my
(07:43):
teacher realized my potentialand my passion for studying, for
discovering very early. So shewas the one who realized the
world was too small for me andthe ambitions I had were too
small. Because when she askedme, What do you want to do, I
said, Oh, well, I guess I'mgoing to become a teacher,
right? Because my mom was ateacher. Everybody around me was
a teacher. And the idea was, ifyou're a teacher, you can come
(08:05):
home after lunch, you can bethere for your kids when they
come back from school. You canlive in the same neighborhood.
It's, in a way, a predefinedlife that made sense for all I
knew at the time, and thatteacher understood through my
composition when I wrote that mystrive was a strive and desire
to discover, explore, pushmyself outside of the boundaries
(08:29):
that I didn't know I havebecause I didn't perceive any
boundaries. If you don't knowwhat's outside, you don't feel
you're just living in a smallworld. And so she opened my
eyes, she gave me many morebooks to read. She gave me books
about other type of jobs, and Irealized that it's true, there
is something else outside ofwhat I knew and I didn't know
(08:52):
what I didn't know at the time.
Randall Kaplan (08:53):
We're lucky, right? We had that teacher.
What's your advice? The peoplewho have never had that teacher,
which we never gave them theencouragement say, Okay, you're
special. You can do this. Let'stry to motivate you to expand
behind what you think you'realready capable of. I think
Ilaria Resta (09:08):
all of us have met, and we're in other people
who inspire us. And what wedon't know, at least, I never do
is ask proactively for help andadvice. And I received now so
many emails from people, fromkids, from younger students, to
whom I give advice on which,which exam to give at University
(09:30):
as a major, where to go touniversity. They sue me speaking
at a graduation ceremony, andthat inspired them. And what I
say to people I always answer sodon't be afraid to go and ask
people, because they willanswer. And we limit ourselves
in in to our small circle of ofof people we know of our
(09:52):
professors, and you might not belucky enough to have somebody
who proactively help you, but goout and search for the people.
People, and for all the all theperson that are nice enough to
want to help, I'm sure if youreceive an email, if you have
the time, you will answer tosupport, maybe kids, of your
kids, like,
Randall Kaplan (10:09):
let's talk about that for a second, because it's
a point I want to cover a littlelater, but let's cover it now.
So you're speaking of a companythat is almost $3 billion in
revenue. Maybe it's a littleless, maybe it's a little more
known here, bro, who knows it'ssomewhere around there,
somewhere somewhere aroundthere. Um, major
responsibilities. You're busy.
You get a lot of emailsinternally, but, yeah, you're
(10:29):
open. You just said you respondto email. Do you respond to
every email personally, or doyou have staff do it? Now?
What's the what's the breakdownthere?
Ilaria Resta (10:38):
Yeah, I am a very, extremely random in the sense
that I read all the subjects,and I am I'm good at reading
most of the emails. I do notreply all emails because I was
in that pattern of replyingevery emails, and I became a
slave of emails. Yeah, soemails, I'm extremely selective
to the ones I reply. I'm verygood in WhatsApp or other tools
(11:01):
like signal to respond fast. Andpeople know that if they need me
for fast decisions, they canwrite me text and I will reply
fast, or they can come to myoffice. My office door is open
when I'm not busy. But thenthere are emails that I normally
receive from students, from evenyoung kids who are passionate
about watchmaking, and Inormally reply to those, and I
(11:24):
reply directly. So for instance,a young kid was about to decide
which type of studies to make hewas he said, I'm not talented to
study economics like you, but Iwould like to enter the world of
watchmaking. What should I do?
Say, why don't you? Why don'tyou come over to the museum and
see what we do. And
Randall Kaplan (11:43):
so some random, random person you didn't know,
and he sends you a cold email,yeah,
Ilaria Resta (11:49):
now I'm creating a bad crescent, Ruby bombard. My
response rate, maybe
Randall Kaplan (11:54):
a lot of bad questions. I'm going to ask you
about, I think the importance, Imean, so many CEOs have a they
sit in this kind of glass power.
They're not connected to people,and they really don't take cold
emails. And I think this is trueof some not all. I've had some
amazing CEOs on my show, likeyou, who are very responsible to
people, but I personally thinkit's very important I respond
(12:16):
personally to every single onethat I get. And when people ask
me for a meeting, just given myown responsibilities today with
my company, Sandy, our realestate company, a book I'm
writing on extreme preparation,and then my show, you got to
earn the meeting. And when Italk about that, you know, they
listen to podcasts, they writeme the letter, my letter writing
(12:37):
campaign, and my own background,if you don't know about it and
you want a meeting, don't you'renot going to get one, right,
because it means that youhaven't showed up. But I think
when I sent you a cold email,you responded in a day. What was
it about my email, which was acold email? Was it the subject
line that that had you, whetherthe fact that I was a customer?
(12:57):
No,
Ilaria Resta (12:59):
first of all, I knew you for for the podcast,
right? So I knew your name. Irespect you, so I open. The
reason why I was I was excitedis because exactly what you do
here is giving a voice andanswers to people to whom I will
not have the time to answerpersonally, right? So if from
(13:21):
this conversation, we can help20 people to get the answers
that normally I would have giventhem in one to ones or through
an email, I think we haveactually given me a big help in
that.
Randall Kaplan (13:33):
Well, that's so nice, and I appreciate you being
here. I hope it's more than afew 100. I hope it's many 1000s.
And like I said to you before,I've had over 2500 DMS ask me
about my watch, and I wear mywatch on my show. This is a
beautiful Wario shout out toLeslie Cameron and the Aston
store for getting me this and areally nice watch. And she's
fantastic, as you know. But Ithink it's really important to
(13:58):
give back and to answer peoplewho earn the meeting. So I think
that's incredible that thatyou've done that. Let's move on
to but I believe
Ilaria Resta (14:07):
I want to clarify, it's not only generosity. There
is so much I get back by doingso in terms of proximity to
people, to students, tounderstand what's happening. You
mentioned how, as a CEO, we arein this ivory tower, and I'm
trying to break the ivory tower.
I really don't believe in thispyramidal approach to
leadership. So for me, peoplethank me, but I thank them also,
(14:29):
to get in touch with me and letme, let me know the truth, even
clients that are extremely wehave many, many, many, many
clients who are happy. But itcould be that few are trying to
get a watch. They write to medirectly, and I want to hear
also from the negatives, right?
So that's that's important tome.
Randall Kaplan (14:49):
Okay? That's keep going through your
childhood and then youngadulthood. You went to
University of Naples. You'regoing to study. Classical
Studies, then you took amarketing class and entered a
marketing contest that you won.
What was the contest? How didyou win, and how did that
influence what you did afterthat?
Ilaria Resta (15:10):
So it was, at the time, a project to launch a new
brand of a new variant of amayonnaise. It was a mayonnaise,
mayonnaise craft, the
Randall Kaplan (15:21):
unhealthy sauce you put on, I don't want to
comment on the album, to be introuble when, when, when we're
older, we really don't hit themayonnaise when we're younger.
Is it's unlimited anyway. It's
Ilaria Resta (15:31):
the mayor craft that, at the time, was part of
the group, uh, Philip Morris. Itwas Philip Morris craft, Jacobs,
Charlotte, all together, andthey did a marketing contest for
universities to launch a new newvariants of this mayo. I was
really not into marketing atall, because I was studying my
(15:52):
major was financial mathematics,and I was doing my studies more
on the financial aspect andmarketing was for me, an area of
interest, but not really passionyet. But when you put your hands
in developing a business planand business model to launch
something, it became veryconcrete. I did it with two
(16:12):
other colleagues of university,and it was a wonderful
opportunity to be, to be onstage and present this business
plan, and I realized by doingit, because my two colleagues
were not really, reallyinterested in marketing. At the
end, I was the one carryingforward the work. I felt in
love. I started doing moreresearch. It's always like that
(16:32):
with me. I go into somethingaccidentally, and I make a big
part of my life, because I startstudying and preparing so much
that then I fall in love, and Ifelt in love with marketing,
Randall Kaplan (16:45):
one of the biggest problems in the job
force today and the environmentthat we live in, and again, it's
different than when we werecoming up in our careers, is
people job hop a lot. They'regoing from one to another. And I
give everyone advice. I have allthese interns. I said, I don't
care what happens, you need tostay in your first job for at
(17:06):
least two years. And I said, Oh,gosh, you know, I don't like
this. I don't and they thinkit's okay. I don't. If you can't
do well and succeed in difficultenvironment, you're not going to
do well in your career. So, andthen we also don't hire people
that have had more than maybetwo or three jobs in 10 years,
right? They're they're going tomove to the next firm. You spent
(17:28):
23 years at one company. Youstarted as assistant brand
manager and then senior vicepresident of the hair care
division, which was billions ofdollars in revenue. What was the
single biggest lesson you learnin those 23 years of Procter and
Gamble, oh, wow,
Ilaria Resta (17:45):
what a question the importance of making fast
decisions on your organization.
That's that's the biggest lessonas I grew, of course, you grew
in the size of people youmanage, and the tendency you
might have, at least I had, wasto protect and coach and develop
all the people I had. And thenyou realize that you do a
(18:06):
disparity to the people in thecompany by doing so trying to
tell that sometimes people thatdo not fit do not perform in
line with the expectation. Butbecause, by nature, I'm a type
of a motherly leader. At thevery beginning, I was the one
insisting to crack thedifficulty with with some some
(18:26):
of my team members, while Ididn't invest so much on the
others that had big potential,and this is a waste of resources
that we cannot afford, plus, itdoesn't help the people who
don't fit, because it shouldrather live earlier
Randall Kaplan (18:41):
after 23 years you went to firminish, if I'm
pronouncing that correctly,privately owned company or
sorry, publicly owned company.
Now publicly owned company. As Iwas doing my research, one of
the things that I learned aboutperfume and fragrances is how
much it can affect your mood.
Talk to us about brain studiesand the link between science and
(19:03):
actual perfume either positiveor negative. It's
Ilaria Resta (19:07):
interesting because you could say fragrances
are extremely like creative andthey are, they are like or, as
you say, lifting your moods. Youlike them, and we all know that
right there is an element ofemotion that is triggered by art
(19:28):
and fragrance. Fragrance workmuch deeper in the cognitive
aspect of our brain, becausethey enhance memories. So when
you smell something and then youuse Mel again after even many
years after it's proven toreactivate that part of the
(19:49):
brain where the memory isstored. So we discover, done
multiple studies with MRI, alsojust to understand what type of
ingredients trigger what type ofemotion. And then we discover.
Discover there's a plethora ofother emotions that we can
trigger, like a stress releaseor mood enhancer, like happiness
(20:10):
or like relaxation, sleep. Thereis an even excitement. There are
certain frequencies we give youthe adrenaline and the
excitement to go after a task.
It's it's also on the basis ofaromatherapy work that has been
done. So it's amazing howfragrance is a word that is
extremely scientific andchemical, but at the same time
artistic and close to the worldof
Randall Kaplan (20:33):
beauty. So let's talk about the history of
watches in AP itself, the firstwatch was invented around 1505
by someone named Peter henleen,a German locksmith and
watchmaker from Nuremberg,Germany, the first wrist watch
is widely attributed to AbrahamLouis Burgett, who crafted a
wrist mountain timepiece in 1810for Caroline Murray, the queen
(20:57):
of Naples and Sister of NapoleonOmar Piguet was founded 65 years
later in 1875 in Le brasus,Switzerland. Since then, has
been regarded as one of theindustry's big four brands,
along with Rolex, pickax,Philippe and Richard mill. AP
remains a family owned companytoday, and according to a Morgan
Stanley report, had sales of$2.6 billion in 2023 so in large
(21:21):
companies, when you need a newCEO, typically you're going to
get promoted from someone withwithin the company. It's it's
very uncommon for someoneoutside of a particular
business. The CEO of Chanel in2022 came in from Unilever as
the Chief Human ResourcesOfficer, and everyone said, Oh
(21:45):
my gosh, that's that's crazy.
Talk to us about the recruitercall you got while you're with
your family on a lake inSwitzerland, and what that call
was like,
Ilaria Resta (21:55):
with the romantic image of me being on the lake. I
was actually driving to work,but joking. It was a call that
surprised me, of course, becauseif you look at the watchmaking
industries, is not, not reallyknown for opening positions,
especially at high senior levelor CEO from the world of
(22:16):
outside. So I was, I wassurprised positively, because,
of course, I respected and lovedof the market and the watch
industry, and I startedparticipating to the recruitment
process, thinking, Okay, this,this is an interesting
experience for me, to get toknow the family, to get to know
the shareholders, but at the endof the day, I'm, I'm really the
(22:39):
outlier on this process, in thisprocess, for sure, and that's
what I've been hearing from,from the adult but then, few
interviews, few market testslater, I here. I am.
Randall Kaplan (22:51):
What watch were you wearing at the time you got
that call,
Ilaria Resta (22:57):
a swatch. A swatch. Swatch
Randall Kaplan (22:59):
is one of the largest watch companies over I
hate a lot of people. I don'tknow that's the top billions and
billions of dollars in revenue.
And
Ilaria Resta (23:06):
actually, I didn't hide it and just excuse myself
for not wearing another mark.
Again. They were very kind. Andin it was a also personal watch.
It was a watch given to me by acolleague who gave it to him.
You
Randall Kaplan (23:19):
said, at some point when you're walking around
this lake considering the offer,you said, I feel like I belong
here. So how important is it forpeople today when they're
thinking about a job versus allthe other considerations they
have? Say, You know what? Thisis? The right company for me is
Ilaria Resta (23:36):
the number one reason before you join. That's
why I believe and I always tellpeople, when you go to an
interview, you focus so much inconvincing people to hire you
that you forget asking yourself,do I want to be hired by these
people? And ask questions tothem to ensure you really
understand the culture of thecompany you're you're going to
(23:59):
it's a marriage. And yes, thereis, you think you have less
power in the negotiation becauseyou have you really want to pass
interview, you really want to gothere, but do the due diligence
and understand, do I belong?
There is the value system of thecompany aligned with mine. And
importantly, is the way theywork fitting with the way I
work. And I can be at best.
(24:21):
There are. There is nothingworse than making a mistake,
hiring mistake, but it's so muchworse for the individual who
makes it, the company willsurvive, will go through it.
It's not the best, but for theindividual, making a mistake can
be an issue, especially in thefirst years of the job. To your
point. Then what you leave aftertwo or two soon, and then you
(24:43):
jeopardize your CV because youlook like a hopper. You look
like somebody who couldn'tsurvive in that work
environment. So the advice is,really, please make time for
questions at the end of theinterview, observe the behaviors
and get the information aroundyou about the company you. Are
interviewing with that's such
Randall Kaplan (25:01):
an important point that when you're
interviewing for a job, it's twoway interview two. And did you
ask a company the favoritequestion that you ask when you
are looking for new people,which is, what's your biggest
failure, and how did youovercome that failure? I
actually
Ilaria Resta (25:17):
asked them Yes.
Asked them the mission for meand and then I asked them all
the things that didn't go well,which was incredible, because I
realized how honest andstraightforward they were to me.
Because, you know, sometimes youget all the amazing questions,
and then, yeah, what doesn'twork is really the canteen, the
food, not the real, the realanswers, right? That is sugar
(25:42):
coated. In that case, the boardinterviewing me extremely they
were extremely honest andtransparent, is sharing with me
the good and the bad and theexpectations for me.
Randall Kaplan (25:56):
How much preparation did you do from the
first recruiter call to yourinterview with AP a lot
Ilaria Resta (26:03):
in the sense that I knew about the watch word. I
also knew suspected that I waspart of a cohort of candidates
that knew much better than me,because they were coming from
the industry, and I have boughtwatches myself throughout my
life, but not with the mindsetof a collector who study
(26:25):
watches. So I was ignorant inthe in that regard, and
throughout I did, I did multipleinterviews. Many were about me,
my leadership style. But then,of course, a good part of
interviews were on businesscases for watches, right? They
needed to check my learningability, my ability to answer
(26:46):
questions on different subjects,on the watch industry, from
marketing, from product insupply chain distribution and
the conversation. It was a very,very long process of interviews.
So I studied a lot, as I alwaysdo. I read. I went to visit the
stores. I went to visit the toother market. I did a missile
(27:07):
shopping visit that lasted threehours
Randall Kaplan (27:10):
just to walk into a store and go and knew
that who you were and No, no,they
Ilaria Resta (27:13):
didn't know I was.
I was just an interview. Yet itI never set foot on another
market store in Geneva. I wentthere and I spent three hours
interviewing for me, butactually was, uh, interacting
with the one of the storemanagers.
Randall Kaplan (27:27):
You were basically saying, I'm interested
in a watch with
Ilaria Resta (27:29):
I felt I'm interested in the hottest watch
we had at the time, right? Whatwas it? A royal Arroyo, okay,
yes, jumbo 39 millimeter, which,of course, I knew they, didn't
have they couldn't offer me thetime I was not a client. I knew
it would have been a verydifficult conversation, but I
wanted to have a conversationabout how these people treat
(27:52):
newcomers in the in their store.
I mean, I wanted to test them onthe toughest part of their job,
which is like newcomer, notknowing the industry, asking
very naive question on purposeabout the company or about the
model I was I was offered, andit was a wonderful experience. I
still remember it. It was Julianwho interviewed me, interview
(28:16):
me, who gave me the support inthe boutique. He kept me three
hours explaining to me thehistory of the Murphy gay he
took a book, he gave me a bookas a gift. He explained
everything about watches, and wenever spoke about any
transaction. It was really a wayfor him to understand me, so he
could serve me better. So it wasone of I tell you, and I've done
(28:39):
many other visits of otherwatchmakers, of course, just to
understand it was the best visitever to any brand in this sector
and beyond. And so when I wasannounced, of course, Julian
this this guy wrote me and notthanking me for the visit and
and saying, of course, you willget the what you wanted. No
(29:01):
problem now. So we're going
Randall Kaplan (29:04):
to talk about extreme preparation a little
later in the show as well. It's,it's a title that I'm
essentially trying to create,and Brandon, I'm writing a book
by the same title, but you didan enormous amount of research
preparation studying for thisjob. Can you tell when people
come in for a job interview withyou, the level and amount of
(29:28):
dedication to the preparationbefore they walk in immediately,
and you
Ilaria Resta (29:33):
spot it immediately in the vocabulary
they use, because theirvocabulary they use highlights
whether or not they understoodthe even the way we talk about
our own business. Okay, we don'ttalk about customers. We talk
about clients. We we talk abouttime, pieces, so complications,
we have a certain language andnarrative. Just so you can see
(29:54):
from the website, it is veryeasy to grasp immediately you
understand our values. Very,very easily. So if you don't do
the minimum due diligence tocheck the website or even also
you don't know the names of thepeople you met before I often
ask, So who did you meet beforeme? Arya, the HR, and this
(30:16):
unpersonalized response alreadytells you, how could you not
even remember the first name ofthe person who spent time with
you? It denotes lack ofinterest, lack of depth, and
then you got it immediatelythroughout the interview, also
by the type of question. Becausethe other thing I try to test
always is the level ofcuriosity. I use somebody who
(30:38):
curious to learn more. I usesomebody was questioned that are
intelligent question thatdenotes genuine interest to know
more about us. Will you learnwhen you join us? Or will you
think it's done? I got the job.
This is it. I move on, and youget it immediately throughout
the interview.
Randall Kaplan (30:56):
I'm a big proponent as well on
preparation, and it's amazinghow many people don't go to my
website and see my bio, which ison there? And one of the things
that's on there is the name ofmy dog, karma. And I it's when I
ask the question, you know, nameof my dog, and somebody doesn't
know the name of my dog. Themeeting is basically finished. I
(31:18):
ran some criticism on this, onon feedback and DMS and some of
the posts. If you're not goingto spend even five minutes going
on to a website, don't bothercoming in and wasting my time.
But of all the things that youlook for in hiring, we're gonna
talk about some of them a littlelater. Where does preparation
rank in terms of a jobapplicants future success in
(31:42):
getting that job.
Ilaria Resta (31:43):
It's uh, fundamental, for sure, as a as a
way in as the entry price, let'ssay, is the entry ticket to to
stay in the interview with achance of success. Because many
interviews, I guess, you do thesame, you get a candidate after
five minutes, you already knowthe conversation is done pretty
much because it lacks thefundamental interest in the
(32:05):
company and the preparation. Toyour point. I mean, some people
came to me saying, You're in thewrong name of of the watch we
produce. I say, Come on, youcannot really least know Which
model do we produce, right?
There's not so many. We're fourin our portfolio, so that that
is clear at the very beginning,but the preparation is also is a
(32:25):
double sword, right? Becausethen you're so stuck in trying
to have your messages passedthat you don't have this power
of agility and following theconversation in a natural way.
And I had these people reallywanted to insert their message
striking the conversations, Iignore it. You have this
experience. Let me. Let's moveon. Get with me in another level
(32:47):
of the conversation. Follow me,and this power of mind agility
is is sometimes the flip side ofextreme preparation and
stubbornness to pass all thepoints.
Randall Kaplan (33:02):
It's hard to follow a successful CEO has been
at a company many, many years. Ithink the most famous example of
that is Tim Cook following SteveJobs. When Steve Jobs passed
away. Oh, my God, Apple, how canI continue to grow? Has
continued to thrive. Youfollowed a CEO named Henry
Louise Benny moss. If I sawBenny Moss, at the company 30
(33:24):
years CEO, 12 years tough act tofollow. What, what was the main
thing that you were thinkingabout, and what were the
challenges following someone whohad grown the company, revenue
exploded under him, operatingmargin exploded under him as
Ilaria Resta (33:37):
well. Listen, this is the question I received the
most. Like, how do you feel? Tofeel the big shoes of your
predecessor. And I had so manypredecessor, of course, in all
the jobs I had, I had big shoesor small shoes at the end, I
believe you wear your own shoes.
You need to be clear of thejourney your predecessors, all
of them have done, but you starta new part of the life of the
(34:00):
company, okay, especially acompany like the market that,
yes, it exists for 150 years,but is on a development
projection and change ofbusiness model that is constant
that you've if you stay too muchanchored to my predecessor, what
he has done pay tribute to Thelegacy of the past, you forget
what your mission is. Yourmission is really bring the
(34:23):
company from point A, you got itto point B, knowing that this
point B needs to strengthen thefuture of the company. So I
personally don't like thinkingtoo much about who am I
following, also, because thecontexts change. What I also
don't like is the approach ofchanging everything your
predecessor has done, which Ifound it clearly, honestly
(34:45):
irresponsible for the company,because there is so much ego in
the change of of leadership,especially at CEO levels.
Because if you come in after asuccessful CEO, you really want
to prove yourself compared tothe other. My own right, my
temp. I want to give animmediate, visible proof that
you are a good choice. You feelthe sense of an inferiority. All
(35:06):
this needs to go away. What whatyou need to do is, first of all,
understand your mission. Yourmission starts the day you take
over, and you need to make theinterest of the company and not
your own ego. That's the reasonwhy you're there and you're not
in a war or in a competitionwith predecessors before you.
(35:27):
That's why, when people ask me,What are you going to change? I
will change the necessary to bechanged, but the intent is not
to change for the sake of changeand and this especially because
there are so many good choicesthat I as I've been done before.
So I am extremely clear topeople that, and also people
reporting to me who replaceother people. Focus on your
(35:48):
journey, but please take themost time with your predecessor
to learn. Because what we do inthe in the changeovers,
especially of CEOs, there is avery clear cut the past in the
old sometimes, as you arrives,there is nobody there. You need
to make an effort as a CEO toreally reach out to your
predecessor one or many yearsbefore, to really go under the
(36:10):
skin of the company, understandtheir choices, why they made
certain choices, and then youmake your own. But try to learn
this avoidance of the past forfear of comparison, I found it
extremely egocentric andchildish, and it's not my
approach.
Randall Kaplan (36:28):
Let's talk about some stats in the watch industry
itself, and then we're gonna getinto details of AP, which I
love, and I'm super excited totalk about in 2025 the watch
industry is projected to be amarket of $104.21 billion Apple
Watch is the most popular. Theysold 53 million watches in 2022
(36:49):
the Apple Watch out sells theentire switch watch industry of
that market. I'm going to rootquickly the top five brands.
We'll start with Rolex. Theyproduce every year 1,240,000
watches. Their sales are $11.5billion Cartier produces 660,000
watches for $3.4 billion watchrevenue. Omega produces 579,000
(37:14):
watches per revenue of 2.8 9billion AP 51,000 watches a year
unconfirmed, but lots of peopleseem to know that number for 2.6
1 billion and protect Philippe,70,000 watches, $2.28 billion
your mission, when you gotthere, was not to focus
(37:37):
exclusively on growth. What wasthe mission about stopping
looking building and rebuilding,and why on earth would you
continue not to grow when thingsare going amazingly well?
Doesn't every company want tokeep growing and produce
billions of dollars more revenueand profit?
Ilaria Resta (37:57):
Let me start by the mission, which is a very
clear mission extremelydifficult, which is guarantee
the parentity of the company asa family, independent business.
This is a big choice that I needto preserve and work on, and
it's not easy, because theparentity requires my view to be
(38:19):
extremely telescopic, whilenormally the view of SEO is
microscopic and telescopic atthe same time, right? You need
to take care of if you're apublicly traded I was obsessed
in my publicly traded job on thequarter results, on the year
research and so forth, so forth.
I need to have both viewstelescopic and microscopic. But
the telescopic, even beyond mytenure, needs to be so strong
(38:43):
and overtaking the short term.
Why is that? Because the choiceswe are making are choices that
we need to guarantee quality. Weneed to guarantee a certain mix
of products, and this is my myfocus is innovation, product
quality and mix of watch makingexcellence. There are different
(39:07):
types of watches, okay, thereare watches with the movements
of different degree ofcomplexity. What other marketing
has always been known for,historically is high end
complications. The complicationthat starts from a calendar
could be a perpetual calendar,like one you own. Could be a
grand complication. Could be asunny can be a Corona, to beyond
(39:30):
combination of complication, andwe aim at pushing boundaries on
complication. At the same time,there is another vector
innovation for us, which are thematerials? You have gold, you
have steel, you have many othermaterials, but we like also to
work on new ones. That's why welaunched new ceramics. We
launched a material called theforged carbon. We launched a new
(39:54):
alloy of gold called the sandgold. And for us, these aim at
developing new materials. Justtrademark new materials is an
exciting project forwatchmaking. And then on top of
that, you put the creativityright, because the watch as as a
dial, as a face, as as askeletage that is possible
inside the open work. There areso many aspects of the
(40:14):
watchmaking we can produce alot, or we can produce great,
outstanding time pieces, and Iput the accelerator and the
accent on the quality. There isnot only an element of
production and selling, there isan element of the strategy,
which is client centricity andclient service. You spoke about
(40:34):
the great service you get. Forus, we are trying to create a
relationship that goes beyondthe transaction of buying and
paying and taking a watch home.
The moment we meet with a clientor a prospect client, we
establish a relationship. Theexample of my mystery shopping
was the building of arelationship. What we try to do
with the new clients isunderstand, what are their
(40:56):
motivations? Why do they want tobuy a watch? How can I serve
them as in a way that they willlove the time thesis, forever
and now, can we build and curatetheir collection over time? This
is a service that requiresinvestment on people. Our visits
are not 10 minutes. You come in,you buy and you leave. It's
multiple hours, multiple days,multiple months. We do events.
(41:19):
The reason why we acquired ourdistribution network, which is
quite an exception in thewatchmaking industry, is exactly
for the reason to invest in therelationship. And that is
something that is not possibleif you want to produce much,
much higher number of watches.
So it's really because ofinnovation, client relationship
(41:41):
and the quality we're aiming wewill not increase dramatically.
The number of watch. When
Randall Kaplan (41:47):
you came in and announced hired to the business,
you did two things. You got toknow the people, and you really
got knee deep in themanufacturing process. Can you
briefly talk about what you didto meet the people, kind of how
far down on the chain that youwent and can you talk about the
supply chain and the materialsof watchmaking, which I don't
(42:09):
think many people understand,are these outside contractors
making microscopic movements inthe wash, where you get them in,
like a car company, and thenyou've got 50 things on the
shelf that you're using atweezers for whatever using to
put the watch together. Okay,
Ilaria Resta (42:26):
let me answer on the on the onboarding part. I
started my first day I willnever forget as being a tour of
the lake by foot. So the thefirst day was devoted to
discover the place where all themarketing was born, the nature,
the lake, the temperature, seethe village. And that was a full
(42:47):
day dedicated to that which, ifyou think about it, it was a
wonderful I was impatient to gosee the watches, and instead, I
spent one day visiting the lake.
And then I realized how much ofan investment, a positive
investment, it was, becausewhere we are define who we are
today. We are in a place that isvery secluded and difficult to
reach, surrounded by mountainsfor at the time 150 years ago,
(43:09):
it was so much covered in snowduring the winter time, so that
people were stuck there, stuckwith very few resources. You had
wood, you have water, you hadvery rust, and you had very
little to do. Mini mechanicalmovements. That's the only thing
they can produce. They didn'thave enough quantity to do big
(43:31):
productions of big pieces. Somicro mechanic was not a choice.
Was a necessity, and the onlypossibility for them. And then
they started producing the farm.
They were farmers. All farmersin the valley started to produce
the smaller components. And thenthey sold in Geneva, in Paris,
(43:52):
in London, to the watches.
That's how it all started. Andwhen you visit the valet, you
discover the attics where allthe watchmakers were working,
exposed to the north, protectedby the wind, and that was an
important tour for me tounderstand. This is it? That's
how we exist this way. And thenyou realize that all these
houses of watchmakers, they wereconnected very close, one to the
(44:15):
other, and that's how thewatchmaking industry started as
a system called system de tablysur. Table sur is a group of
families that were working eachon a component, specialized on
specific component. And now thebar pique was the project
manager, the publisher, bringingtogether the different
(44:36):
expertise, the differentcomponents into a watch. So for
us, the valet is our birthplace,but it's also our if you want a
community of suppliers,manufacturer at the time,
without whom, we wouldn't behere. So the visit of the valet
was necessary for me tounderstand that we are not alone
(44:58):
in. Cannot enter the office ofthe market game, believing I
learn everything inside here. Ilearned first by observing with
a recopter view all that ishappening around it. And then I
did literally Atelier forAtelier, bench by bench, every
single watchmaker in all ourproduction sites. I had a chance
to spend a few words with themost of them to understand what
(45:21):
they did, what was their job,but the challenges of their job,
I try to assemble. Watch myselfunsuccessfully already, just the
taking with the with a little,you know, Brazil is called in
French, the little screw that isinvisible for you to to look at
it. It shows the dexterityrequired to do this, this job.
(45:42):
So I did a lot of, a lot of andmy onboarding was really
observing a lot, talking a lot.
And when you say how low youwent in the organization, I
would say I went extremely highin competence. Because this is
where the competence are.
Watchmakers, the people doingthe work on our amazing time PC,
right?
Randall Kaplan (46:03):
What I meant to say, and was, How deep did you
go? You've you've explained, howmany subcontractors, for lack of
a better word, are there makingdifferent parts that go into a
watch? You're not producing allthese. You always don't.
Ilaria Resta (46:18):
We collaborate with the strategic partners. It
quite if you cannot name you thenumber, but we have, we have,
certainly at least good, I wouldsay, 2030, strategic partners.
We work with that provide thekey components, but we try to
(46:38):
mix external to internalcapabilities as well, because we
like also to experience theproduction of components that we
might continue even stillbuying, but we want to develop
ourselves the capabilities to beable to produce them. So we are
trying to train ourselves to dothings that we buy in order to
make sure we understand thewhole world of watchmaking.
Randall Kaplan (47:01):
When you buy a new car, the manufacturer tests
it usually has 35 or 50 mileswhen you take it from the
showroom. So you know the carworks. Do you test drive your
watches to make sure they work?
They're so complicated. How doyou know that every watch going
out the door is going tofunction as it should, because
these are self lining watches,you have to have some movement
(47:23):
for them to keep proper time. Sothe process, what we
Ilaria Resta (47:28):
do is, first of all, we have multiple quality
control checks to ensure that isfor every single watch that we
produce. Controls to avoid thatwhen water, they immerse any
water, for example, to ensurethat when water come in, they
are not destroying the movement,we have drop tests. We have all
sorts of tests, quality visualtests. We have at every step
(47:52):
somebody is checking also,because when we do the checks at
the end, when the watch isassembled, it's too late,
because then you need this newsassembled. So at each stage
there are multiple qualitychecks. If a caliber is a new
caliber, what we do? We dodevelop a prototype that our
engineers, our conceptualdevelopers, wear, and we believe
(48:12):
that wearing the prototypes isimportant because they live the
life with you. And we simulatewhat would be the first months,
or in some case, even for oneyear the life of the watch, in
terms of, does it work? Is it isit comfortable the material is
is it exposed to water? Does itdegrade? Is there an issue with
that? And then we then we launchit. So we have a very, very high
(48:35):
standard of control. You're
Randall Kaplan (48:37):
listening to part one of my incredible
interview with Larry orsta, theCEO of the luxury watch, ground
Amar Piguet, be sure to tune innext week to my awesome
interview with alaria. You.
We are in a business of relationship and
(00:02):
passion for quality, because themoment we create a relationship,
this relationship lasts formany, many years and beyond you.
We receive watches of the dateshundreds years ago, and we
service them and we repair them.
We take pictures because wediscover movements that we are
not producing anymore. And youenter in our family. And we call
our clients the AP family, mostof them, because they really
(00:24):
start getting to know us. Weknow their collection. We can
curate it. The reason why weacquired our distribution
network, which is quite anexception in the watchmaking
industry, is exactly for thereason to invest in the
relationship you Randy,
Randall Kaplan (00:43):
Welcome to In Search of Excellence, where we
meet entrepreneurs, CEOs,entertainers, athletes,
motivational speakers andtrailblazers of excellence, with
incredible stories from allwalks of life. My name is
Randall Kaplan. I'm a serialentrepreneur, venture capitalist
and the host of In Search ofExcellence, which I started to
motivate and inspire us toachieve excellence in all areas
(01:04):
of our lives. My guest today isalaria resta. Alaria is the CEO
of aadmar, PGA, one of theoldest and most exclusive watch
brands in the world, prior to APas it's known in the watch
industry. Ilaria was thepresident and CEO of firminich,
120 year old, family ownedcompany in Switzerland that
creates perfumes for manybrands, including Saint Laurent,
(01:25):
Gucci, Hugo Boss, and which hasannual revenues of more than $3
billion and a market value as ofthe soaring of $27.7 billion
prior to that, she spent 23years at Procter and Gamble,
most recently as senior vicepresident of its North American
hair care division, where shehelped create and build iconic
brands including Thai Panteneand head and shoulders. Valaria,
(01:48):
thanks for being here. Welcometo In Search of Excellence.
Thank you Randy for inviting solet's start at the beginning. He
grew up in Naples, Italy, which,for those people don't know, is
the third largest city in Italy,behind Rome and Milan. Your
parents didn't go to college.
They spoke Italian only, andthey had never left the country.
So talk to us about what yourparents were like and the
(02:09):
influence they had on yougrowing up. Well, they were
Ilaria Resta (02:12):
the typical family from Napoli, extremely
traditional, a family that usedto live pretty much in the same
neighborhood. So my mom was ateacher for me, or to say,
kindergarten teacher, and myfather was working first as a
teacher and then as as asupporting in a hospital. So I
(02:35):
grew up in a family that wasvery, very traditional, very
traditional values and not muchcuriosity to leave the country
to speak new languages. I didn'tknow anything outside of my
neighborhood existed for many,many years. What? What did your
father do for a profession? Somy father worked in the
Information Systems forhospitals. So it was managing
(02:56):
the data and the it for ahospital. He was a programmer,
or he was a programmer, yes. So
Randall Kaplan (03:04):
you were born naturally hard on yourself in
kindergarten. You got frustratedwhen you weren't coloring
perfectly within the lines. Oh,my
Ilaria Resta (03:12):
God, you know everything about me. Yes, I was
always and this is what my momtold me, of course, always
extremely high, demanding ofmyself on my standards of
precision and excellence. And Iremember the teacher. That's
what my mom told me. The teachercomplained with my mom that I
was too slow in giving back mydrawings because I was aiming at
(03:34):
perfection. So I kept onthrowing away redoing it until
it was perfect at three yearsold. We
Randall Kaplan (03:40):
all have dreams when we're a kid. I remember
when I was five or six yearsold, of course, I want to be a
professional baseball player, afootball player. What were your
dreams and when was the firstdream you had when you're
thinking about your profession?
It's
Ilaria Resta (03:52):
funny because in reality, the dream started very
late in my life. My I was verymuch short term focused. I
wanted to have amazing grades atschool. I wanted to excel at
drawing. I wanted to excel incertain areas I was involved to.
And then all of a sudden, Irealized there was a world
outside of Napoli, and my dreamwas to travel. So very soon it
(04:15):
became clear to me, whatever jobthat would take me out of
Napoli, Italy and make mediscover would be my my dream. A
Randall Kaplan (04:22):
lot of us, when we are later in life, we learn
certain things, and one of thosethings is to really acknowledge
the importance of feedback. Butyour parents taught you the
feedback at a young age, that itwas a true gift. What was that
like, and how did learning thatat an early age influence your
future
Ilaria Resta (04:40):
success. When my parents were always supportive
of me, especially in education,I had very good grades at
school, but every time I could,I came home, my parents were
asking me, why not the maximumscore? Why didn't you get even
more than that? And it was nota. Name a demand for perfection.
(05:01):
It was really they wanted tounderstand what more could have
done to be better. And that wasa great question, because it was
I never felt the pressure.
Actually felt the desire toreally get to the to the top of
my grade constantly.
Randall Kaplan (05:17):
I think again, when we think about our future,
I collected baseball cards as akid. And you see these cards and
said, All right, I want to be abaseball player. You collected,
well, your mom eater gave you agift. Talk about the perfume
bottle on the east if I'm sayingthat greatly by Cherelle that
was on your desk, and how thatinfluenced your teacher as your
career. I was
Ilaria Resta (05:38):
passionate about beauty in general, beautiful
things. And maybe it's because Iwas into drawing. Very early in
my life, I spent my free timedrawing. I'm not particularly
good and I'm not a miss artist.
So the word of art didn't missanything with me not doing it
professionally, but I wasextremely involved in visual
arts and and that led me to likebottles, shapes, colors. So I
(06:01):
got into the world of perfume,attracted by the colors of
bottle and cache. I had thisbeautiful type of ceramic bottle
with the white and rose pinkroses. And I just, I just, it
was my first perfume i openedand I smell when I was very
young. And that was my my giftfor my birthday. And ever since,
(06:22):
my mom felt I was in love withfrequencies, which I ultimate,
ultimately I became, and shekept on giving me gift of
fragrances over, over the
Randall Kaplan (06:32):
years. Several years ago, I was with my
daughter in New York. We weremadness for a garden, watching
Billy and Joel. And Billy Joelwas up on stage, and he said, I
wouldn't be here, but for mymusic teacher, when I was 14
years old, they named thisteacher, and their teacher, his
90th birthday, is still living.
So he had everybody, 20,000people seeing him happy
birthday. I had a teacher namedDon Corwin. Sophomore year of
(06:55):
high school. I took an econclass and that, that flipped me.
I said, All right, that's what Iwant to do. We read all these
profiles about CEOs. I grew upin Detroit, so we'd read about
CEO of GM Chrysler back then wasa huge thing. And I said, Okay,
that's, that's, that's what Iwant to do, talk to us about
your high school teacher and theinfluence she had on your life.
(07:20):
So I
Ilaria Resta (07:22):
went to study at least classical languages. So I
studied ancient Greek, Latin,Latin, and I avoided English,
big time and any other languagethat was modern. I was really
fascinated by going back to theto the ancient times and and my
(07:43):
teacher realized my potentialand my passion for studying, for
discovering very early. So shewas the one who realized the
world was too small for me andthe ambitions I had were too
small. Because when she askedme, What do you want to do, I
said, Oh, well, I guess I'mgoing to become a teacher,
right? Because my mom was ateacher. Everybody around me was
a teacher. And the idea was, ifyou're a teacher, you can come
(08:05):
home after lunch, you can bethere for your kids when they
come back from school. You canlive in the same neighborhood.
It's, in a way, a predefinedlife that made sense for all I
knew at the time, and thatteacher understood through my
composition when I wrote that mystrive was a strive and desire
to discover, explore, pushmyself outside of the boundaries
(08:29):
that I didn't know I havebecause I didn't perceive any
boundaries. If you don't knowwhat's outside, you don't feel
you're just living in a smallworld. And so she opened my
eyes, she gave me many morebooks to read. She gave me books
about other type of jobs, and Irealized that it's true, there
is something else outside ofwhat I knew and I didn't know
(08:52):
what I didn't know at the time.
Randall Kaplan (08:53):
We're lucky, right? We had that teacher.
What's your advice? The peoplewho have never had that teacher,
which we never gave them theencouragement say, Okay, you're
special. You can do this. Let'stry to motivate you to expand
behind what you think you'realready capable of. I think
Ilaria Resta (09:08):
all of us have met, and we're in other people
who inspire us. And what wedon't know, at least, I never do
is ask proactively for help andadvice. And I received now so
many emails from people, fromkids, from younger students, to
whom I give advice on which,which exam to give at University
(09:30):
as a major, where to go touniversity. They sue me speaking
at a graduation ceremony, andthat inspired them. And what I
say to people I always answer sodon't be afraid to go and ask
people, because they willanswer. And we limit ourselves
in in to our small circle of ofof people we know of our
(09:52):
professors, and you might not belucky enough to have somebody
who proactively help you, but goout and search for the people.
People, and for all the all theperson that are nice enough to
want to help, I'm sure if youreceive an email, if you have
the time, you will answer tosupport, maybe kids, of your
kids, like,
Randall Kaplan (10:09):
let's talk about that for a second, because it's
a point I want to cover a littlelater, but let's cover it now.
So you're speaking of a companythat is almost $3 billion in
revenue. Maybe it's a littleless, maybe it's a little more
known here, bro, who knows it'ssomewhere around there,
somewhere somewhere aroundthere. Um, major
responsibilities. You're busy.
You get a lot of emailsinternally, but, yeah, you're
(10:29):
open. You just said you respondto email. Do you respond to
every email personally, or doyou have staff do it? Now?
What's the what's the breakdownthere?
Ilaria Resta (10:38):
Yeah, I am a very, extremely random in the sense
that I read all the subjects,and I am I'm good at reading
most of the emails. I do notreply all emails because I was
in that pattern of replyingevery emails, and I became a
slave of emails. Yeah, soemails, I'm extremely selective
to the ones I reply. I'm verygood in WhatsApp or other tools
(11:01):
like signal to respond fast. Andpeople know that if they need me
for fast decisions, they canwrite me text and I will reply
fast, or they can come to myoffice. My office door is open
when I'm not busy. But thenthere are emails that I normally
receive from students, from evenyoung kids who are passionate
about watchmaking, and Inormally reply to those, and I
(11:24):
reply directly. So for instance,a young kid was about to decide
which type of studies to make hewas he said, I'm not talented to
study economics like you, but Iwould like to enter the world of
watchmaking. What should I do?
Say, why don't you? Why don'tyou come over to the museum and
see what we do. And
Randall Kaplan (11:43):
so some random, random person you didn't know,
and he sends you a cold email,yeah,
Ilaria Resta (11:49):
now I'm creating a bad crescent, Ruby bombard. My
response rate, maybe
Randall Kaplan (11:54):
a lot of bad questions. I'm going to ask you
about, I think the importance, Imean, so many CEOs have a they
sit in this kind of glass power.
They're not connected to people,and they really don't take cold
emails. And I think this is trueof some not all. I've had some
amazing CEOs on my show, likeyou, who are very responsible to
people, but I personally thinkit's very important I respond
(12:16):
personally to every single onethat I get. And when people ask
me for a meeting, just given myown responsibilities today with
my company, Sandy, our realestate company, a book I'm
writing on extreme preparation,and then my show, you got to
earn the meeting. And when Italk about that, you know, they
listen to podcasts, they writeme the letter, my letter writing
(12:37):
campaign, and my own background,if you don't know about it and
you want a meeting, don't you'renot going to get one, right,
because it means that youhaven't showed up. But I think
when I sent you a cold email,you responded in a day. What was
it about my email, which was acold email? Was it the subject
line that that had you, whetherthe fact that I was a customer?
(12:57):
No,
Ilaria Resta (12:59):
first of all, I knew you for for the podcast,
right? So I knew your name. Irespect you, so I open. The
reason why I was I was excitedis because exactly what you do
here is giving a voice andanswers to people to whom I will
not have the time to answerpersonally, right? So if from
(13:21):
this conversation, we can help20 people to get the answers
that normally I would have giventhem in one to ones or through
an email, I think we haveactually given me a big help in
that.
Randall Kaplan (13:33):
Well, that's so nice, and I appreciate you being
here. I hope it's more than afew 100. I hope it's many 1000s.
And like I said to you before,I've had over 2500 DMS ask me
about my watch, and I wear mywatch on my show. This is a
beautiful Wario shout out toLeslie Cameron and the Aston
store for getting me this and areally nice watch. And she's
fantastic, as you know. But Ithink it's really important to
(13:58):
give back and to answer peoplewho earn the meeting. So I think
that's incredible that thatyou've done that. Let's move on
to but I believe
Ilaria Resta (14:07):
I want to clarify, it's not only generosity. There
is so much I get back by doingso in terms of proximity to
people, to students, tounderstand what's happening. You
mentioned how, as a CEO, we arein this ivory tower, and I'm
trying to break the ivory tower.
I really don't believe in thispyramidal approach to
leadership. So for me, peoplethank me, but I thank them also,
(14:29):
to get in touch with me and letme, let me know the truth, even
clients that are extremely wehave many, many, many, many
clients who are happy. But itcould be that few are trying to
get a watch. They write to medirectly, and I want to hear
also from the negatives, right?
So that's that's important tome.
Randall Kaplan (14:49):
Okay? That's keep going through your
childhood and then youngadulthood. You went to
University of Naples. You'regoing to study. Classical
Studies, then you took amarketing class and entered a
marketing contest that you won.
What was the contest? How didyou win, and how did that
influence what you did afterthat?
Ilaria Resta (15:10):
So it was, at the time, a project to launch a new
brand of a new variant of amayonnaise. It was a mayonnaise,
mayonnaise craft, the
Randall Kaplan (15:21):
unhealthy sauce you put on, I don't want to
comment on the album, to be introuble when, when, when we're
older, we really don't hit themayonnaise when we're younger.
Is it's unlimited anyway. It's
Ilaria Resta (15:31):
the mayor craft that, at the time, was part of
the group, uh, Philip Morris. Itwas Philip Morris craft, Jacobs,
Charlotte, all together, andthey did a marketing contest for
universities to launch a new newvariants of this mayo. I was
really not into marketing atall, because I was studying my
(15:52):
major was financial mathematics,and I was doing my studies more
on the financial aspect andmarketing was for me, an area of
interest, but not really passionyet. But when you put your hands
in developing a business planand business model to launch
something, it became veryconcrete. I did it with two
(16:12):
other colleagues of university,and it was a wonderful
opportunity to be, to be onstage and present this business
plan, and I realized by doingit, because my two colleagues
were not really, reallyinterested in marketing. At the
end, I was the one carryingforward the work. I felt in
love. I started doing moreresearch. It's always like that
(16:32):
with me. I go into somethingaccidentally, and I make a big
part of my life, because I startstudying and preparing so much
that then I fall in love, and Ifelt in love with marketing,
Randall Kaplan (16:45):
one of the biggest problems in the job
force today and the environmentthat we live in, and again, it's
different than when we werecoming up in our careers, is
people job hop a lot. They'regoing from one to another. And I
give everyone advice. I have allthese interns. I said, I don't
care what happens, you need tostay in your first job for at
(17:06):
least two years. And I said, Oh,gosh, you know, I don't like
this. I don't and they thinkit's okay. I don't. If you can't
do well and succeed in difficultenvironment, you're not going to
do well in your career. So, andthen we also don't hire people
that have had more than maybetwo or three jobs in 10 years,
right? They're they're going tomove to the next firm. You spent
(17:28):
23 years at one company. Youstarted as assistant brand
manager and then senior vicepresident of the hair care
division, which was billions ofdollars in revenue. What was the
single biggest lesson you learnin those 23 years of Procter and
Gamble, oh, wow,
Ilaria Resta (17:45):
what a question the importance of making fast
decisions on your organization.
That's that's the biggest lessonas I grew, of course, you grew
in the size of people youmanage, and the tendency you
might have, at least I had, wasto protect and coach and develop
all the people I had. And thenyou realize that you do a
(18:06):
disparity to the people in thecompany by doing so trying to
tell that sometimes people thatdo not fit do not perform in
line with the expectation. Butbecause, by nature, I'm a type
of a motherly leader. At thevery beginning, I was the one
insisting to crack thedifficulty with with some some
(18:26):
of my team members, while Ididn't invest so much on the
others that had big potential,and this is a waste of resources
that we cannot afford, plus, itdoesn't help the people who
don't fit, because it shouldrather live earlier
Randall Kaplan (18:41):
after 23 years you went to firminish, if I'm
pronouncing that correctly,privately owned company or
sorry, publicly owned company.
Now publicly owned company. As Iwas doing my research, one of
the things that I learned aboutperfume and fragrances is how
much it can affect your mood.
Talk to us about brain studiesand the link between science and
(19:03):
actual perfume either positiveor negative. It's
Ilaria Resta (19:07):
interesting because you could say fragrances
are extremely like creative andthey are, they are like or, as
you say, lifting your moods. Youlike them, and we all know that
right there is an element ofemotion that is triggered by art
(19:28):
and fragrance. Fragrance workmuch deeper in the cognitive
aspect of our brain, becausethey enhance memories. So when
you smell something and then youuse Mel again after even many
years after it's proven toreactivate that part of the
(19:49):
brain where the memory isstored. So we discover, done
multiple studies with MRI, alsojust to understand what type of
ingredients trigger what type ofemotion. And then we discover.
Discover there's a plethora ofother emotions that we can
trigger, like a stress releaseor mood enhancer, like happiness
(20:10):
or like relaxation, sleep. Thereis an even excitement. There are
certain frequencies we give youthe adrenaline and the
excitement to go after a task.
It's it's also on the basis ofaromatherapy work that has been
done. So it's amazing howfragrance is a word that is
extremely scientific andchemical, but at the same time
artistic and close to the worldof
Randall Kaplan (20:33):
beauty. So let's talk about the history of
watches in AP itself, the firstwatch was invented around 1505
by someone named Peter henleen,a German locksmith and
watchmaker from Nuremberg,Germany, the first wrist watch
is widely attributed to AbrahamLouis Burgett, who crafted a
wrist mountain timepiece in 1810for Caroline Murray, the queen
(20:57):
of Naples and Sister of NapoleonOmar Piguet was founded 65 years
later in 1875 in Le brasus,Switzerland. Since then, has
been regarded as one of theindustry's big four brands,
along with Rolex, pickax,Philippe and Richard mill. AP
remains a family owned companytoday, and according to a Morgan
Stanley report, had sales of$2.6 billion in 2023 so in large
(21:21):
companies, when you need a newCEO, typically you're going to
get promoted from someone withwithin the company. It's it's
very uncommon for someoneoutside of a particular
business. The CEO of Chanel in2022 came in from Unilever as
the Chief Human ResourcesOfficer, and everyone said, Oh
(21:45):
my gosh, that's that's crazy.
Talk to us about the recruitercall you got while you're with
your family on a lake inSwitzerland, and what that call
was like,
Ilaria Resta (21:55):
with the romantic image of me being on the lake. I
was actually driving to work,but joking. It was a call that
surprised me, of course, becauseif you look at the watchmaking
industries, is not, not reallyknown for opening positions,
especially at high senior levelor CEO from the world of
(22:16):
outside. So I was, I wassurprised positively, because,
of course, I respected and lovedof the market and the watch
industry, and I startedparticipating to the recruitment
process, thinking, Okay, this,this is an interesting
experience for me, to get toknow the family, to get to know
the shareholders, but at the endof the day, I'm, I'm really the
(22:39):
outlier on this process, in thisprocess, for sure, and that's
what I've been hearing from,from the adult but then, few
interviews, few market testslater, I here. I am.
Randall Kaplan (22:51):
What watch were you wearing at the time you got
that call,
Ilaria Resta (22:57):
a swatch. A swatch. Swatch
Randall Kaplan (22:59):
is one of the largest watch companies over I
hate a lot of people. I don'tknow that's the top billions and
billions of dollars in revenue.
And
Ilaria Resta (23:06):
actually, I didn't hide it and just excuse myself
for not wearing another mark.
Again. They were very kind. Andin it was a also personal watch.
It was a watch given to me by acolleague who gave it to him.
You
Randall Kaplan (23:19):
said, at some point when you're walking around
this lake considering the offer,you said, I feel like I belong
here. So how important is it forpeople today when they're
thinking about a job versus allthe other considerations they
have? Say, You know what? Thisis? The right company for me is
Ilaria Resta (23:36):
the number one reason before you join. That's
why I believe and I always tellpeople, when you go to an
interview, you focus so much inconvincing people to hire you
that you forget asking yourself,do I want to be hired by these
people? And ask questions tothem to ensure you really
understand the culture of thecompany you're you're going to
(23:59):
it's a marriage. And yes, thereis, you think you have less
power in the negotiation becauseyou have you really want to pass
interview, you really want to gothere, but do the due diligence
and understand, do I belong?
There is the value system of thecompany aligned with mine. And
importantly, is the way theywork fitting with the way I
work. And I can be at best.
(24:21):
There are. There is nothingworse than making a mistake,
hiring mistake, but it's so muchworse for the individual who
makes it, the company willsurvive, will go through it.
It's not the best, but for theindividual, making a mistake can
be an issue, especially in thefirst years of the job. To your
point. Then what you leave aftertwo or two soon, and then you
(24:43):
jeopardize your CV because youlook like a hopper. You look
like somebody who couldn'tsurvive in that work
environment. So the advice is,really, please make time for
questions at the end of theinterview, observe the behaviors
and get the information aroundyou about the company you. Are
interviewing with that's such
Randall Kaplan (25:01):
an important point that when you're
interviewing for a job, it's twoway interview two. And did you
ask a company the favoritequestion that you ask when you
are looking for new people,which is, what's your biggest
failure, and how did youovercome that failure? I
actually
Ilaria Resta (25:17):
asked them Yes.
Asked them the mission for meand and then I asked them all
the things that didn't go well,which was incredible, because I
realized how honest andstraightforward they were to me.
Because, you know, sometimes youget all the amazing questions,
and then, yeah, what doesn'twork is really the canteen, the
food, not the real, the realanswers, right? That is sugar
(25:42):
coated. In that case, the boardinterviewing me extremely they
were extremely honest andtransparent, is sharing with me
the good and the bad and theexpectations for me.
Randall Kaplan (25:56):
How much preparation did you do from the
first recruiter call to yourinterview with AP a lot
Ilaria Resta (26:03):
in the sense that I knew about the watch word. I
also knew suspected that I waspart of a cohort of candidates
that knew much better than me,because they were coming from
the industry, and I have boughtwatches myself throughout my
life, but not with the mindsetof a collector who study
(26:25):
watches. So I was ignorant inthe in that regard, and
throughout I did, I did multipleinterviews. Many were about me,
my leadership style. But then,of course, a good part of
interviews were on businesscases for watches, right? They
needed to check my learningability, my ability to answer
(26:46):
questions on different subjects,on the watch industry, from
marketing, from product insupply chain distribution and
the conversation. It was a very,very long process of interviews.
So I studied a lot, as I alwaysdo. I read. I went to visit the
stores. I went to visit the toother market. I did a missile
(27:07):
shopping visit that lasted threehours
Randall Kaplan (27:10):
just to walk into a store and go and knew
that who you were and No, no,they
Ilaria Resta (27:13):
didn't know I was.
I was just an interview. Yet itI never set foot on another
market store in Geneva. I wentthere and I spent three hours
interviewing for me, butactually was, uh, interacting
with the one of the storemanagers.
Randall Kaplan (27:27):
You were basically saying, I'm interested
in a watch with
Ilaria Resta (27:29):
I felt I'm interested in the hottest watch
we had at the time, right? Whatwas it? A royal Arroyo, okay,
yes, jumbo 39 millimeter, which,of course, I knew they, didn't
have they couldn't offer me thetime I was not a client. I knew
it would have been a verydifficult conversation, but I
wanted to have a conversationabout how these people treat
(27:52):
newcomers in the in their store.
I mean, I wanted to test them onthe toughest part of their job,
which is like newcomer, notknowing the industry, asking
very naive question on purposeabout the company or about the
model I was I was offered, andit was a wonderful experience. I
still remember it. It was Julianwho interviewed me, interview
(28:16):
me, who gave me the support inthe boutique. He kept me three
hours explaining to me thehistory of the Murphy gay he
took a book, he gave me a bookas a gift. He explained
everything about watches, and wenever spoke about any
transaction. It was really a wayfor him to understand me, so he
could serve me better. So it wasone of I tell you, and I've done
(28:39):
many other visits of otherwatchmakers, of course, just to
understand it was the best visitever to any brand in this sector
and beyond. And so when I wasannounced, of course, Julian
this this guy wrote me and notthanking me for the visit and
and saying, of course, you willget the what you wanted. No
(29:01):
problem now. So we're going
Randall Kaplan (29:04):
to talk about extreme preparation a little
later in the show as well. It's,it's a title that I'm
essentially trying to create,and Brandon, I'm writing a book
by the same title, but you didan enormous amount of research
preparation studying for thisjob. Can you tell when people
come in for a job interview withyou, the level and amount of
(29:28):
dedication to the preparationbefore they walk in immediately,
and you
Ilaria Resta (29:33):
spot it immediately in the vocabulary
they use, because theirvocabulary they use highlights
whether or not they understoodthe even the way we talk about
our own business. Okay, we don'ttalk about customers. We talk
about clients. We we talk abouttime, pieces, so complications,
we have a certain language andnarrative. Just so you can see
(29:54):
from the website, it is veryeasy to grasp immediately you
understand our values. Very,very easily. So if you don't do
the minimum due diligence tocheck the website or even also
you don't know the names of thepeople you met before I often
ask, So who did you meet beforeme? Arya, the HR, and this
(30:16):
unpersonalized response alreadytells you, how could you not
even remember the first name ofthe person who spent time with
you? It denotes lack ofinterest, lack of depth, and
then you got it immediatelythroughout the interview, also
by the type of question. Becausethe other thing I try to test
always is the level ofcuriosity. I use somebody who
(30:38):
curious to learn more. I usesomebody was questioned that are
intelligent question thatdenotes genuine interest to know
more about us. Will you learnwhen you join us? Or will you
think it's done? I got the job.
This is it. I move on, and youget it immediately throughout
the interview.
Randall Kaplan (30:56):
I'm a big proponent as well on
preparation, and it's amazinghow many people don't go to my
website and see my bio, which ison there? And one of the things
that's on there is the name ofmy dog, karma. And I it's when I
ask the question, you know, nameof my dog, and somebody doesn't
know the name of my dog. Themeeting is basically finished. I
(31:18):
ran some criticism on this, onon feedback and DMS and some of
the posts. If you're not goingto spend even five minutes going
on to a website, don't bothercoming in and wasting my time.
But of all the things that youlook for in hiring, we're gonna
talk about some of them a littlelater. Where does preparation
rank in terms of a jobapplicants future success in
(31:42):
getting that job.
Ilaria Resta (31:43):
It's uh, fundamental, for sure, as a as a
way in as the entry price, let'ssay, is the entry ticket to to
stay in the interview with achance of success. Because many
interviews, I guess, you do thesame, you get a candidate after
five minutes, you already knowthe conversation is done pretty
much because it lacks thefundamental interest in the
(32:05):
company and the preparation. Toyour point. I mean, some people
came to me saying, You're in thewrong name of of the watch we
produce. I say, Come on, youcannot really least know Which
model do we produce, right?
There's not so many. We're fourin our portfolio, so that that
is clear at the very beginning,but the preparation is also is a
(32:25):
double sword, right? Becausethen you're so stuck in trying
to have your messages passedthat you don't have this power
of agility and following theconversation in a natural way.
And I had these people reallywanted to insert their message
striking the conversations, Iignore it. You have this
experience. Let me. Let's moveon. Get with me in another level
(32:47):
of the conversation. Follow me,and this power of mind agility
is is sometimes the flip side ofextreme preparation and
stubbornness to pass all thepoints.
Randall Kaplan (33:02):
It's hard to follow a successful CEO has been
at a company many, many years. Ithink the most famous example of
that is Tim Cook following SteveJobs. When Steve Jobs passed
away. Oh, my God, Apple, how canI continue to grow? Has
continued to thrive. Youfollowed a CEO named Henry
Louise Benny moss. If I sawBenny Moss, at the company 30
(33:24):
years CEO, 12 years tough act tofollow. What, what was the main
thing that you were thinkingabout, and what were the
challenges following someone whohad grown the company, revenue
exploded under him, operatingmargin exploded under him as
Ilaria Resta (33:37):
well. Listen, this is the question I received the
most. Like, how do you feel? Tofeel the big shoes of your
predecessor. And I had so manypredecessor, of course, in all
the jobs I had, I had big shoesor small shoes at the end, I
believe you wear your own shoes.
You need to be clear of thejourney your predecessors, all
of them have done, but you starta new part of the life of the
(34:00):
company, okay, especially acompany like the market that,
yes, it exists for 150 years,but is on a development
projection and change ofbusiness model that is constant
that you've if you stay too muchanchored to my predecessor, what
he has done pay tribute to Thelegacy of the past, you forget
what your mission is. Yourmission is really bring the
(34:23):
company from point A, you got itto point B, knowing that this
point B needs to strengthen thefuture of the company. So I
personally don't like thinkingtoo much about who am I
following, also, because thecontexts change. What I also
don't like is the approach ofchanging everything your
predecessor has done, which Ifound it clearly, honestly
(34:45):
irresponsible for the company,because there is so much ego in
the change of of leadership,especially at CEO levels.
Because if you come in after asuccessful CEO, you really want
to prove yourself compared tothe other. My own right, my
temp. I want to give animmediate, visible proof that
you are a good choice. You feelthe sense of an inferiority. All
(35:06):
this needs to go away. What whatyou need to do is, first of all,
understand your mission. Yourmission starts the day you take
over, and you need to make theinterest of the company and not
your own ego. That's the reasonwhy you're there and you're not
in a war or in a competitionwith predecessors before you.
(35:27):
That's why, when people ask me,What are you going to change? I
will change the necessary to bechanged, but the intent is not
to change for the sake of changeand and this especially because
there are so many good choicesthat I as I've been done before.
So I am extremely clear topeople that, and also people
reporting to me who replaceother people. Focus on your
(35:48):
journey, but please take themost time with your predecessor
to learn. Because what we do inthe in the changeovers,
especially of CEOs, there is avery clear cut the past in the
old sometimes, as you arrives,there is nobody there. You need
to make an effort as a CEO toreally reach out to your
predecessor one or many yearsbefore, to really go under the
(36:10):
skin of the company, understandtheir choices, why they made
certain choices, and then youmake your own. But try to learn
this avoidance of the past forfear of comparison, I found it
extremely egocentric andchildish, and it's not my
approach.
Randall Kaplan (36:28):
Let's talk about some stats in the watch industry
itself, and then we're gonna getinto details of AP, which I
love, and I'm super excited totalk about in 2025 the watch
industry is projected to be amarket of $104.21 billion Apple
Watch is the most popular. Theysold 53 million watches in 2022
(36:49):
the Apple Watch out sells theentire switch watch industry of
that market. I'm going to rootquickly the top five brands.
We'll start with Rolex. Theyproduce every year 1,240,000
watches. Their sales are $11.5billion Cartier produces 660,000
watches for $3.4 billion watchrevenue. Omega produces 579,000
(37:14):
watches per revenue of 2.8 9billion AP 51,000 watches a year
unconfirmed, but lots of peopleseem to know that number for 2.6
1 billion and protect Philippe,70,000 watches, $2.28 billion
your mission, when you gotthere, was not to focus
(37:37):
exclusively on growth. What wasthe mission about stopping
looking building and rebuilding,and why on earth would you
continue not to grow when thingsare going amazingly well?
Doesn't every company want tokeep growing and produce
billions of dollars more revenueand profit?
Ilaria Resta (37:57):
Let me start by the mission, which is a very
clear mission extremelydifficult, which is guarantee
the parentity of the company asa family, independent business.
This is a big choice that I needto preserve and work on, and
it's not easy, because theparentity requires my view to be
(38:19):
extremely telescopic, whilenormally the view of SEO is
microscopic and telescopic atthe same time, right? You need
to take care of if you're apublicly traded I was obsessed
in my publicly traded job on thequarter results, on the year
research and so forth, so forth.
I need to have both viewstelescopic and microscopic. But
the telescopic, even beyond mytenure, needs to be so strong
(38:43):
and overtaking the short term.
Why is that? Because the choiceswe are making are choices that
we need to guarantee quality. Weneed to guarantee a certain mix
of products, and this is my myfocus is innovation, product
quality and mix of watch makingexcellence. There are different
(39:07):
types of watches, okay, thereare watches with the movements
of different degree ofcomplexity. What other marketing
has always been known for,historically is high end
complications. The complicationthat starts from a calendar
could be a perpetual calendar,like one you own. Could be a
grand complication. Could be asunny can be a Corona, to beyond
(39:30):
combination of complication, andwe aim at pushing boundaries on
complication. At the same time,there is another vector
innovation for us, which are thematerials? You have gold, you
have steel, you have many othermaterials, but we like also to
work on new ones. That's why welaunched new ceramics. We
launched a material called theforged carbon. We launched a new
(39:54):
alloy of gold called the sandgold. And for us, these aim at
developing new materials. Justtrademark new materials is an
exciting project forwatchmaking. And then on top of
that, you put the creativityright, because the watch as as a
dial, as a face, as as askeletage that is possible
inside the open work. There areso many aspects of the
(40:14):
watchmaking we can produce alot, or we can produce great,
outstanding time pieces, and Iput the accelerator and the
accent on the quality. There isnot only an element of
production and selling, there isan element of the strategy,
which is client centricity andclient service. You spoke about
(40:34):
the great service you get. Forus, we are trying to create a
relationship that goes beyondthe transaction of buying and
paying and taking a watch home.
The moment we meet with a clientor a prospect client, we
establish a relationship. Theexample of my mystery shopping
was the building of arelationship. What we try to do
with the new clients isunderstand, what are their
(40:56):
motivations? Why do they want tobuy a watch? How can I serve
them as in a way that they willlove the time thesis, forever
and now, can we build and curatetheir collection over time? This
is a service that requiresinvestment on people. Our visits
are not 10 minutes. You come in,you buy and you leave. It's
multiple hours, multiple days,multiple months. We do events.
(41:19):
The reason why we acquired ourdistribution network, which is
quite an exception in thewatchmaking industry, is exactly
for the reason to invest in therelationship. And that is
something that is not possibleif you want to produce much,
much higher number of watches.
So it's really because ofinnovation, client relationship
(41:41):
and the quality we're aiming wewill not increase dramatically.
The number of watch. When
Randall Kaplan (41:47):
you came in and announced hired to the business,
you did two things. You got toknow the people, and you really
got knee deep in themanufacturing process. Can you
briefly talk about what you didto meet the people, kind of how
far down on the chain that youwent and can you talk about the
supply chain and the materialsof watchmaking, which I don't
(42:09):
think many people understand,are these outside contractors
making microscopic movements inthe wash, where you get them in,
like a car company, and thenyou've got 50 things on the
shelf that you're using atweezers for whatever using to
put the watch together. Okay,
Ilaria Resta (42:26):
let me answer on the on the onboarding part. I
started my first day I willnever forget as being a tour of
the lake by foot. So the thefirst day was devoted to
discover the place where all themarketing was born, the nature,
the lake, the temperature, seethe village. And that was a full
(42:47):
day dedicated to that which, ifyou think about it, it was a
wonderful I was impatient to gosee the watches, and instead, I
spent one day visiting the lake.
And then I realized how much ofan investment, a positive
investment, it was, becausewhere we are define who we are
today. We are in a place that isvery secluded and difficult to
reach, surrounded by mountainsfor at the time 150 years ago,
(43:09):
it was so much covered in snowduring the winter time, so that
people were stuck there, stuckwith very few resources. You had
wood, you have water, you hadvery rust, and you had very
little to do. Mini mechanicalmovements. That's the only thing
they can produce. They didn'thave enough quantity to do big
(43:31):
productions of big pieces. Somicro mechanic was not a choice.
Was a necessity, and the onlypossibility for them. And then
they started producing the farm.
They were farmers. All farmersin the valley started to produce
the smaller components. And thenthey sold in Geneva, in Paris,
(43:52):
in London, to the watches.
That's how it all started. Andwhen you visit the valet, you
discover the attics where allthe watchmakers were working,
exposed to the north, protectedby the wind, and that was an
important tour for me tounderstand. This is it? That's
how we exist this way. And thenyou realize that all these
houses of watchmakers, they wereconnected very close, one to the
(44:15):
other, and that's how thewatchmaking industry started as
a system called system de tablysur. Table sur is a group of
families that were working eachon a component, specialized on
specific component. And now thebar pique was the project
manager, the publisher, bringingtogether the different
(44:36):
expertise, the differentcomponents into a watch. So for
us, the valet is our birthplace,but it's also our if you want a
community of suppliers,manufacturer at the time,
without whom, we wouldn't behere. So the visit of the valet
was necessary for me tounderstand that we are not alone
(44:58):
in. Cannot enter the office ofthe market game, believing I
learn everything inside here. Ilearned first by observing with
a recopter view all that ishappening around it. And then I
did literally Atelier forAtelier, bench by bench, every
single watchmaker in all ourproduction sites. I had a chance
to spend a few words with themost of them to understand what
(45:21):
they did, what was their job,but the challenges of their job,
I try to assemble. Watch myselfunsuccessfully already, just the
taking with the with a little,you know, Brazil is called in
French, the little screw that isinvisible for you to to look at
it. It shows the dexterityrequired to do this, this job.
(45:42):
So I did a lot of, a lot of andmy onboarding was really
observing a lot, talking a lot.
And when you say how low youwent in the organization, I
would say I went extremely highin competence. Because this is
where the competence are.
Watchmakers, the people doingthe work on our amazing time PC,
right?
Randall Kaplan (46:03):
What I meant to say, and was, How deep did you
go? You've you've explained, howmany subcontractors, for lack of
a better word, are there makingdifferent parts that go into a
watch? You're not producing allthese. You always don't.
Ilaria Resta (46:18):
We collaborate with the strategic partners. It
quite if you cannot name you thenumber, but we have, we have,
certainly at least good, I wouldsay, 2030, strategic partners.
We work with that provide thekey components, but we try to
(46:38):
mix external to internalcapabilities as well, because we
like also to experience theproduction of components that we
might continue even stillbuying, but we want to develop
ourselves the capabilities to beable to produce them. So we are
trying to train ourselves to dothings that we buy in order to
make sure we understand thewhole world of watchmaking.
Randall Kaplan (47:01):
When you buy a new car, the manufacturer tests
it usually has 35 or 50 mileswhen you take it from the
showroom. So you know the carworks. Do you test drive your
watches to make sure they work?
They're so complicated. How doyou know that every watch going
out the door is going tofunction as it should, because
these are self lining watches,you have to have some movement
(47:23):
for them to keep proper time. Sothe process, what we
Ilaria Resta (47:28):
do is, first of all, we have multiple quality
control checks to ensure that isfor every single watch that we
produce. Controls to avoid thatwhen water, they immerse any
water, for example, to ensurethat when water come in, they
are not destroying the movement,we have drop tests. We have all
sorts of tests, quality visualtests. We have at every step
(47:52):
somebody is checking also,because when we do the checks at
the end, when the watch isassembled, it's too late,
because then you need this newsassembled. So at each stage
there are multiple qualitychecks. If a caliber is a new
caliber, what we do? We dodevelop a prototype that our
engineers, our conceptualdevelopers, wear, and we believe
(48:12):
that wearing the prototypes isimportant because they live the
life with you. And we simulatewhat would be the first months,
or in some case, even for oneyear the life of the watch, in
terms of, does it work? Is it isit comfortable the material is
is it exposed to water? Does itdegrade? Is there an issue with
that? And then we then we launchit. So we have a very, very high
(48:35):
standard of control. You're
Randall Kaplan (48:37):
listening to part one of my incredible
interview with Larry orsta, theCEO of the luxury watch, ground
Amar Piguet, be sure to tune innext week to my awesome
interview with alaria. You.
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