ThePuristS Interview Nicolas G. Hayek
President and CEO, Montres Breguet SA
Chairman, Swatch Group

Transcript of Mr. Hayek's thoughts on entrepreneurs and the changing of the guard in the Swiss Watch Industry

"We are putting new people, with new ideas; entrepreneurs, not MBA's...people who really look at the market of the consumer. Creative people, artists, not businessmen. And you have to get new young people who do not sit near the computer at the bank and try to make shareholders value
and make money with shares.

I have my philosophy about entrepreneur. An entrepreneur is an artist who creates products, who creates jobs and communicates it to the people. Picasso was an artist who was an entrepreneur.

And I keep saying, we destroyed most of our industry in Switzerland and the United States and others, by believing that an MBA from Harvard will permit you to be a big genius. There is a saying from me that has been published in the whole press in Europe and many universities - if you take a donkey to Salzburg music school you won't make a Mozart out of him.

And if you take a camel to Harvard, you don't make a "Henry Ford" of him. That doesn't mean
that everybody that goes to Harvard is a camel, but if he is not gifted to be an entrepreneur he can't do it.

That's why we have the WorldComms, the wrong balance sheet, the stock exchange that's completely crazy and uncontrollable, the financiers are running the industry and not entrepreneurs. And I am changing this.

In Swatch Group, entrepreneurs are running the show and not financiers. I threw out every
banker that worked for our company. Two days after I took over, you won't find one banker in our company."