Cover Story

Nicolas G. Hayek

Time stops as legend passes away into eternity

Mr. Nicolas G. Hayek, Chairman and Delegate of the Board of Directors of The Swatch Group Ltd. unexpectedly passed away on June 28, 2010 due to heart failure during work at his beloved Swatch Group.

Mr. Nicolas G. Hayek's greatest merit was his enormous contribution to the saving of the Swiss watch industry and the foundation and the commercial development of the Swatch Group. Mr. Nicolas G. Hayek's extraordinary vision enabled him to realize and ensure the sustainability of a strong watchmaking enterprise with high Swiss added value. He is rightly recognized as a leading entrepreneur in this country.

With the right personnel decisions, Mr. Nicolas G. Hayek also ensured that his ideas and beliefs will live on and that continuity is guaranteed in regard of shareholders, Board of Directors and the Group Management Board.

Nicolas G. Hayek, born in 1928, is the co-founder, Chairman and Delegate of the Board of Directors of the Swatch Group, with principal headquarters in Biel-Bienne. After having engineered and implemented the reorganization of the Asuag and SSIH watch companies for more than four years, finally bringing about their merger, N.G. Hayek took over, with a group of Swiss investors, a major shareholder in the new group in 1985. He became Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer in 1986.

N.G. Hayek played a decisive role in the recovery of the Swatch Group with its watch brands Swatch, Breguet, Blancpain, Hatot, Glashütte Original/Union, Jaquet-Droz, Léon Hatot, Omega, Longines, Rado, Tissot, Calvin Klein, Certina, Mido, Hamilton, Pierre Balmain, Flik Flak and Endura. The strategies he developed in the early 1980s led to the success of the entire Swiss watch industry and regained its leading position worldwide since 1984.

A few of his achievements at the Swatch Group are:

    * the strategic decision for launching the Swatch based upon the masterplan of Hayek Engineering AG.

    * the continuous development and improvement of products and trademarks such as Breguet, Omega, Rado, Longines, Tissot, etc.

    * maintaining the number one position in the watch industry on a worldwide basis by achieving sales of over 4 billion Swiss francs in 2000.

    * the revival of the Swiss watch industry through the supply of watch movements and components to the whole Swiss watch industry.

Especially for this reason but also as a sign of gratitude for maintaining and creating new jobs and production centers in Switzerland as well as in Europe and for the development of the Swatch brand, Mr. Hayek was awarded the title of Doctor honoris causa of the Faculty of "Beni Culturali" of the University of Bologna (Italy) in June 1998, after being awarded doctor honoris causa of Law and Economics of the University of Neuchatel (Switzerland) in 1996.

At the beginning of 1995, the former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl appointed Mr. Hayek member of his Council for Research, Technology and Innovation for the future of Germany and Europe. This Council presided by Mr. Kohl included important German personalities from politics, economy, industry and research, Mr. Hayek being the only foreigner among the seventeen members.

In 1996, the Government of France nominated Mr. Hayek President of the "Groupe de réflexion" of France, an Innovation Council for the future economical strategies of France. He is furthermore consultant to many European governments.

Mr. Hayek was named a member of the IOC 2000, a workshop of the International Olympic Committee formed to restructure the Olympics in the future.