Omega - Candid Chat With Omega CEO Stephen Urquhart

Candid Chat With Omega CEO Stephen Urquhart

Sep 07, 2010,17:12 PM

Stephen Urquhart has been the President of Omega since June 1999. Prior to that, he was Director of Blancpain, on the Board of Directors of Jaeger LeCoultre, President and CEO of Audemars Piguet, and began his career with Omega in 1964 as a Manager of Marketing.

A Candid Chat With Stephen Urquhart, CEO of Omega

By Art Dakessian

I got the call to interview him when he visited Los Angeles in late June for an event commemorating the Constellation line. My instructions were to arrive at the downtown Ritz Carlton for an 11:50 AM session that would last twenty minutes. Fortunately, traffic was light that day, and made it right on time. I took the elevator to the 24th floor where the Omega staff was ensconced in a closed-off restaurant and ushered into Stephen's temporary office. We exchanged brief pleasantries:

AD: By the way, my name is Art Dakessian, Glashütte Original moderator for PuristSPro, just in case you weren't aware of that.

SU: I saw your name before. You have my name, right?

AD: Stephen Urquhart.

SU: That's right. [smile]

AD: Is there a title involved? Doctor, Professor . . .

SU: No, no Professor, no way, no Doctor [laughs]. I'll give you a card - we'll do it Asian style. [jovial exchange of business cards]

AD: Nothing? Just President?

SU: Just Monsieur in French.

AD: Well, my French is worse than your Zulu. [pause] Actually, your Zulu might be fine, considering that South Africa seems to be the happening place right now.

SU: Yes, I would agree.

AD: [raised eyebrow] We had to schedule this right in the middle of the US - Ghana game.

SU: I think Ghana is winning, that's what I've just heard.

AD: [sigh] Well, that's the way it goes. All right, a very simple question.

SU: Ok.

AD: Will there be a new chronograph movement designed around the co-axial escapement? And if so, will this be an in-house development or derived from Piguet?

SU: Ok, very interesting, this came up before in the previous interview [meaning the session just prior]. We've already said so, so I can say it again, we have an in-house chronograph movement in the works that will be presented next year in Basel. In-house, not based on the 8500, but the same technology, with double barrel, with a column wheel, with three-level Co-Axial. That will be a very important introduction for us. We will keep the Piguet 3313 that will be upgraded to a three level Co-Axial escapement for certain models, mainly - size-wise - ladies chronographs. This will be a more sturdy movement with a 60 hour power reserve with an emphasis on quality and reliability. It will replace a lot of our existing models, especially for men.

AD: And this will be an automatic movement, correct?

SU: Yes. For the moment we have an option conceivably to make it also manually wound. At the moment the only manually wound movement is the Moonwatch movement which we don't want to change. It's an iconic product, I think. It's a fabulous movement, all the connoisseurs love it and we don't want to touch it. We don't have a co-axial in it. One day all the mechanical movements will have a co-axial escapement except the Moonwatch.

AD: Well, you just answered another one of my questions. [note: I was going to ask specifically whether the cal 1861 was slated for replacement or revision] The second question is also from Marcus. Is the 8500-based large date movement with GMT function that can be set forwards and backwards ready for release?

SU: It will be available in the middle of next year. We put the emphasis on the annual calendar because that was the version that was most needed.

AD: That's the movement that offers an instantaneous change of both the date and the month.

SU: I don't want to be too modest, but I think we have it at an exceptionally good price point. And it's so useful as it gives you the two things you need. You never write Saturday. [note: the interview was held Saturday June 26th] You write June 26th. It's good to have that on a watch.

AD: You just answered the question I was going to ask about the Speedmaster Professional - basically, it isn't going to be changed in the foreseeable future.

SU: It's a fabulous movement. One of the reasons why we're not changing it is that we would have to go back and order all the tests again to meet NASA's requirements for manned space missions.

AD: Omega has been reaching to it's past for new releases, most notably the Ploprof, which was received with acclaim. Might the Flightmaster be in line for re-issuance?

SU: I'll refer that question. We have certain plans for the Flightmaster in the next twelve to eighteen months. [pause]

We've just re-done our museum. One day if you're in Switzerland, please come and see us. Before we always had a great museum but it was cluttered. Now we've redone the whole concept and it's arranged by theme. When you see our museum you see the incredible history, and there's so many watches in our collection that we could make museum pieces for the next fifty years if we had to. So obviously, as you mentioned, the Ploprof, which is something very iconic; the Flightmaster, also a fabulous watch in different versions we're working on, and I think that next year we'll have something very interesting.