Following the successful launch of its first Master’s degree in Luxury & Digital Strategies at the start of the 2023-2024 academic year, the ISG LUXURY GENEVA will offer, from the start of the next academic year in October 2024, the Watchmaking industry’s first MBA in International Fine Watchmaking Management, designed to train students from all over the world in the marketing, communication and management of Haute Horlogerie brands in Switzerland and around the world with the support of the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie.
Taught 100% in English, this MBA has been created by Cédric Laforge, an expert in marketing and communication in the Haute Horlogerie sector for almost 15 years.
This MBA program will benefit from the excellence of the watchmaking know-how taught and promoted by the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie and from the experience of the best professional experts from the Swiss and international watchmaking industry. This unique, comprehensive and rich MBA has been tailor-made from Geneva, the innovative and ancestral beating heart of Haute Horlogerie, to meet the needs of a growing industry with significant results.
The aim of this MBA is to enable future students to open the doors to the world of luxury, to acquire high-level expertise in the management of Haute Horlogerie brands, to acquire the marketing, management and management skills needed for immediate and operational employability, and to understand the challenges of tomorrow in a context where the Haute Horlogerie sector is undergoing profound change.
It has been created for students with a Bachelor’s degree, as well as working people looking to specialize and/or change career to enter the promising world of Fine Watchmaking.
Designed to generate the future specialists in the Haute Horlogerie industry, the ISG Luxury Geneva’s MBA International Fine Watchmaking Management is breaking new ground today with a new, innovative, hands-on teaching format designed to provide personalized support for each of the 25 students, enabling them to forge closer links with the professionals involved, benefiting from the interactivity necessary for better learning, and guaranteeing maximum employability for each of them.
The MBA International Fine Watchmaking Management is built around 8 strong pillars of development for the students, in order to give them all the keys to this constantly evolving world:
– Fine Watchmaking Culture, History & Perspectives
– Fine Watchmaking Digital Marketing
– Fine Watchmaking Client Management
– Fine Watchmaking Entrepreneurship & Brand Governance
– Fine Watchmaking Brand Building
– Fine Watchmaking Product Development
– Fine Watchmaking Sales Management
– Fine Watchmaking Leadership
This MBA trains for specialist, coordinator or managerial positions in the world of Haute Horlogerie, such as Marketing Manager, Media & Advertising Manager, Sales Ambassador, Business Development Manager, Visual Merchandising Manager, Business Analyst…
To benefit from this high-quality specialized training, international candidates from a wide range of countries must submit a detailed application and attend a motivational interview with the school’s Director and the MBA’s Creator. A native or certified level of English (C1/C2) is also required.
At a time of profound transformation of the global economy and luxury goods, Haute Horlogerie continues its insolent development and unique resilience.
For Franck Belaich, Director and Founder of ISG Luxury Geneva:
“Haute Horlogerie exists and is understood today only in its confrontation, and its conjugation between past, present and future.
Challenging Haute Horlogerie today and tomorrow will enable our students to prepare for a fascinating world between capturing elusive time, exceptional watchmaking tradition and perfectly honed marketing/communication strategies to make this ancestral industry one of the future Luxuries of tomorrow.
With this new program, the ISG Luxury Geneva aims to train enlightened, proactive and responsible professionals… beyond their product and business expertise, beyond their sector and market, part of an ever-changing world of Haute Horlogerie.
The future graduates of this program will know how to act and react to all the new challenges to accompany watchmaking houses towards a radiant future in respect of a rich heritage and the perfection of the gesture of watchmaking art.”
For Cédric Laforge, creator of the MBA International Fine Watchmaking Management at ISG Luxury Geneva:
” Haute Horlogerie is one of the most resilient sectors of the luxury goods industry, which today delights collectors from all over the world. Enthusiasts of the art of watchmaking flock to buy unique and rare timepieces from the finest Watchmaking Maisons in order to own a piece of this singular history.
Indeed, capturing the moments of a lifetime through the purchase of a watch is everyone’s dream. Which timepiece from an exceptional watchmaker isn’t passed down from generation to generation as a delightful obligation, a foil to the passing of time and one societal evolution after another?
Our students will benefit from the best experts in the field to shape together the Haute Horlogerie of today, but above all the Haute Horlogerie of tomorrow, in which the students of the MBA International Fine Watchmaking Management will be immediately employable, adaptable and efficient.
They will immediately be ready to act, make the right decisions, put concrete knowledge into action and apply new ways of managing to create the sustainable future of a flourishing industry that must be perpetually resilient to continue doing what is most beautiful: making its customers dream.”
For Aurélie Streit and Pascal Ravessoud, Vice-Presidents of the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie:
“Fine Watchmaking is a forward-focused sector that is certainly in need of exceptional craftsmen, but also future managers capable of understanding the uniqueness of our industry and its specificities in order to lead the finest Maisons to success.
We are very happy to support ISG Luxury Geneva in creating this pioneering MBA for our industry. We share with ISG Luxury Geneva the same pursuit of excellence in our teaching philosophy.
Future students will be able to benefit from high-level courses in watchmaking culture provided by the trainers of the Fondation Haute Horlogerie, and we are very pleased about this.
Graduating from the MBA in Fine Watchmaking Management will be contingent upon obtaining the Watch Advisor certification, the only certifying training in watchmaking knowledge in the industry. A very fine accomplishment for future passionate students!”
Contact ISG Luxury Geneva
Franck Belaich
Director/Creator of ISG Luxury Geneva Business School
franck.belaich@isg-luxury.ch
+41 79 263 73 60
Cédric Laforge
Creator of ISG Luxury Geneva Masters & MBA
Expert in Marketing & Management
In the fields of Luxury and Fine Watchmaking
cedric.laforge@isg-luxury.ch
+41 79 579 80 96
Christine Trinh
Recruitment director
christine.trinh@isg-luxury.ch
+41 79 270 95 02
About ISG Luxury Geneva
A member of the IONIS Education Group, ISG Luxury Geneva is the first Swiss business school to focus exclusively on luxury education.
Designed to train managers and strategists in the particularities and uniqueness of these sectors and their companies, this specialized structure is a genuine space for research, exchange, creation and teaching for students, professionals and companies.
The ISG Luxury Geneva is the first business school to specialize entirely in the evolution and reshaping of luxury professions, brands and companies.
Each year, from the economic heart of Swiss luxury, the school enables the best international students to learn about the challenges and strategies of the luxury brands and institutions that are partners of the school.
About the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie – FHH
Founded in 2005 by Audemars Piguet, Girard-Perregaux and the Richemont Group, the Fondation Haute Horlogerie (FHH) has since focused its mission on the international influence of watchmaking culture, and positions the watch as an object of art and culture.
Point of reference and neutrality for all subjects relating to watchmaking, it relies for this on three complementary pillars intended for a wide audience, made up of industry professionals, individuals, insiders and of amateurs.
The first, Watches & Culture by FHH, created in 2021, aims to bring watchmaking culture to life through the creation of original content, events and international meetings, intended jointly for the general public and professionals.
As for the FHH Academy, it trains and certifies watchmaking knowledge for today’s professionals and tomorrow’s aficionados. Consisting of a rich and fun offering made up of training courses and certifications, its content is available in class or online in more than 20 countries, making watchmaking knowledge available to all.
Finally, the FHH Forum, a discussion and debate platform designed by the industry for the industry, informs, questions and connects the leaders of the sector with the aim of shaping the ecosystem of the future.
A circle of around forty watch brands is actively committed to the culture and heritage of watchmaking and offers unwavering support to the Foundation since its creation. Visionaries and the avant-garde actively encourage and support the missions and activities of the FHH.