The Right Watchman for almost 10 years Thierry Nataf, CEO of Zenith, bestrode this wrist watch world like a black-suited, skinny-lapelled colossus: a showman, a rock star, an example of the watch executive as a one-man, stadium-filling, super group. He ran Zenith with the full-on pageantry of a major fashion house. Even his moments of repose were carefully choreographed; chin resting artfully on the hand in a pose that combined sultry good looks with a pensive mien and a glimpse of the Zenith at his wrist. His finely delineated qualities were animated by a lively intelligence, his voice by turns purringly confidential and stridently confident, his conversation punctuated by his trademark observation that his heartbeat was at the same frequency as the 36,000vph El Primero movement.

He was the apotheosis of the pre-recession wrist watch boss, living large, living huge, living the brand, living the vision. The benefit of goals is, needless to say, that one wakes up and one day in the summer of 2007 Thierry Nataf woke up to find that he had resigned from Zenith. The watch world is certainly less colourful without him. Likewise he'd put Zenith back into the spotlight. Irrespective of whether one agreed upon with his style or perhaps not and definitely new company manager LVMH had a different vision for the brand at least Zenith was being mentioned. But he has furthermore taken questionable decisions, such as ceasing method of getting El Primero movements to Rolex and raising prices drastically.