Jonathan Brinbaum, Bvlgari’s managing director of the watch business unit, on bringing an outsider’s eye to the luxury house
By all accounts, Jonathan Brinbaum has built a career on moving between categories rather than settling into one comfort zone.
The Frenchman, who holds a double master’s in marketing and finance, cut his teeth at P&G France as an assistant brand manager for baby care before rising through global marketing and design roles, eventually leading the group’s Lacoste and Rochas fragrance brands.
Brinbaum joined LVMH and Bvlgari in 2015 as global marketing director for fragrances, took on travel retail for jewellery, watches, and accessories through the uncertainty of the pandemic, and was named managing director of the perfume unit in 2022. Having led Bvlgari’s watch business unit for the past two years, he brings a conviction that luxury accoutrements, regardless of category, are trades the highest on the same currency—feeling.
Have watches always been your passion?
My father introduced me to watches. We had this lovely tradition where he’d give me a Swatch every year for my birthday, and I could choose which one. And since I knew all year that another one was coming, so I’d spend the whole year planning what the next one would be. That’s simply how the passion started, through that little ritual.
Speaking of transmission, what did you feel needed to be passed on to you in this role?
I’d already been at Bvlgari for 11 years, but in different roles. I took over this position two years ago, and the first thing I did was listen, because Bvlgari’s watchmaking story over the last 15 years has been outstanding. So my first reaction on joining was simply to listen to the people already there, the manufacturers, the engineers, the design centre.
What was on the top of your to-do list?
I believe in the power of bringing things together, of focus. What I’ve tried to do since taking over is regroup our stories a little. What is our story with regards to our heritage in Rome? What is the link between design and Rome? Could there be a link between thinness—our Finissimo collection—and miniaturisation in our women’s watches? It is important to bring the stories together so we can be more impactful in how we communicate, because this brand has so much to say.
Describe your leadership style.
I’m not a leader who dictates what to do. I see myself more as someone conducting an orchestra: you’re not the one playing the music, you’re bringing all the musicians together. So uniting the team, building bridges between design, manufacturing, engineering, development and operations—that’s also what I’ve tried to do, because we have a great deal of talent.
With your watches achieving record-breaking levels of thinness and technical sophistication, do you think that perception has shifted with regard to Bvlgari’s watchmaking stature?
I believe it has changed, because, as I often say, for decades Bvlgari was perceived as a jeweller making watches. Even an iconic watch like the Serpenti Tubogas watch was made with external calibres.
But things have changed since 2000 when we integrated and verticalised all the different métiers of watchmaking. That was a cultural shift, and a mindset shift. We moved from being a jeweller making watches to being a jeweller-watchmaker. That requires not just a change in the products we make, but in the mentality behind how we work, because making our own calibres gives us freedom: freedom to design whatever we want, knowing we have the technical capability to deliver on it. It’s a completely new approach, and that’s the main shift that happened.
Bvlgari watches have broken records and won awards. Is that what success looks like?
I think what I love about those records and prizes is that they help push our innovation. We keep raising the bar, because these organisations recognise great work, whether it’s technique or craftsmanship. But it’s never been a quest just for the sake of winning a prize. If you ask me, our biggest reward is seeing collectors wear a Bvlgari on their wrists.
