N
icola Andreatta took
the helm at Roger
Dubuis as CEO seven
months ago and
has made an instant impact.
This month the brand opened
its independent boutique on
Old Bond Street in London, a
move which forms part of Mr
Andreatta’s master plan to make
Roger Dubuis more recognisable.That is not to say Roger Dubuis
is aiming for mass market appeal.
The challenge is to strike the right
balance between visibility and
exclusivity. The strategy appears
to be working. Just ten days since
it opened its London boutique, the
business has already made several
watch sales, Mr Andreatta was happy
to report.
And, having improved its
positioning in UK, Roger Dubuis
wants to crank up its operations in
the United States as well.
“We already have three stores
in the US. We have one in New
York, one in Austin and one in Los
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expand our presence in the US.
We are talking about eventually
relocating the Madison store in the
next few months and I think I need
a presence in Miami. So we are
exploring possibilities but for sure,
we will continue expanding,” Mr
Andreatta tells WatchPro.
“With the New York store, it is
just a current situation with the
landlord so, knowing we have toAbove
Roger Dubuis
opened a boutique
on London’s Bond
Street this summer.move, we are trying to see what will
be the best place in the New York
landscape. We have the north of the
city which is very classic in a way,
very conservative. I see ourselves
in the more hyped part of New
York so maybe Soho or downtown
Manhattan will be the place where
we are in the future.”
Monobrand boutiques in the
correct locations in global cities
are key to the brand, Mr Andreatta
explains. “We are exploring different
concepts. Retail is evolving and
everybody talks about experience
and that is really the thing that we
need to make sure we give to our
clients so why not come in with a
different kind of experience and
especially in New York where it is a
place where you explore possibilities
more than anywhere else. So, we are
thinking and we will see.”
The Roger Dubuis CEO made it
clear that expanding into and being
successful in the US market was a
task that asks different questions
than doing so in other countries.
He sees Miami, and its different
clientele, as a place in which he can
see the brand doing just that.
On why he seems Miami as such
an attractive retail destination, Mr
Andreatta responds: “Miami is a place
for Latin American people to shop,
most of them go to Miami to buy and
I consider the US for us as a region
with three different markets.
“You have New York which
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completely different type of clientand you start to have Asians as well,
and then Miami, which is again a
different type of market. We do have
a presence with partners in Miami
but I think it’ll be great to have our
own presence there.”
Mr Andreatta brings a wealth of
experience to his new role from both
inside and outside of the industry;
his family had been involved in
watchmaking for ten generations
and made components for a lot
of the well-known brands. He tells
WatchPro that his father had not
wanted him to get into watchmaking
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around the world in that sector.
After that period he decided to
start his own watch brand which was
called NOA, none of the above.
It lasted ten years and was a
journey which he described as an
‘amazing ride.’ He sold NOA to an
American person and joined Tiffany
to look after its watch division.
After what he calls “another
amazing journey” at Tiffany, Mr
Andreatta is now CEO of Roger
Dubuis and he doesn’t think there
could be a better time to be in the
role.
He shares: “This opportunity
popped up and I keep saying I’d
been training 20 years to be here
in this position, and it is a brand I
love and did before I joined. There
couldn’t be a better moment to
be joining Roger Dubuis. We just
closed our best year last year, the
brand is growing and it is a place
where we can express ourselves in16 WATCHPRO / AUGUST 2019 / watchpro.com
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