The Man Behind Rolex

Whenever someone brings up watches, Rolex is alway the first brand to come up.

It's THE watch that people associate with success, status, and luxury.

Everyone knows Rolex, but not many people know its founder. 

 

Hans Wilsdorf.

 

The story of Wilsdorf is interesting to say the least.

 

From being orphaned at 12 years old to creating the most known watch brand in the world... how could that possibly happen?

 

He was born and raised in Kulmbach, Germany in 1881, and by 12 years old, both of his parents passed away.

 

He was sent to his uncle, who lived in Geneva, Switzerland, and this was where Hans' watchmaking journey started.

 

Reason for this is that, similar to today, Geneva was the center of high quality watch making. At 19 (in 1900), after finishing his education, Wilsdorf secured a job at Cuno Korten, a Swiss watch exporting company, where he learnt about the ins and outs of horology and the watch industry (the intricacies of watch movements, the exporting process, etc).

At 24 (in 1905), Hans moved to London, where he founded "Wilsdorf & Davis" with his brother in law, Alfred Davis. They imported high quality watch movements from Switzerland and put them in British wristwatch cases (which at the time were less common than pocket watches), and sold the assembled watches to jewellers. These watches were branded with them name of the jewellery retailers, rather than "Wilsdorf & Davis". 

 

In 1908, Wilsdorf came up with and registered the trademark "Rolex", as he wanted to start branding the watches with a name that was easy to pronounce in many languages. This was crucial for Hans' vision to make wristwatches more popular.

 

Rolex really took off when Wilsdorf created the Rolex Oyster, the world's first waterproof wristwatch. Although the innovation aspect of this was genius, the marketing tactic used by Hans was what truly made Rolex so popular.

 

He gave one of these watches to Mercedes Gleize, a swimmer who became the first British woman to swim the english channel. She wore the watch during the swim, and after 15 hours in the water, the watch remained functional.

 

Rolex kept thriving exponentially after that event, and grew to the most renowned watch brand in existence.

 

A year after the death of Hans' first wife in 1944, Wilsdorf created the "Hans Wilsdorf Foundation", and gave his 100% ownership stake in Rolex to the foundation upon his death in 1960.

 

The Hans Wilsdorf Foundation still owns Rolex to this day, and a decent portion of its profits go to charities and other social causes in Geneva.

 

So when you hear someone say that Rolex is a Non-Profit, thats why!

 

Although Hans passed away over 60 years ago, he lives on with Rolex.

 

Some may say...

 

His legacy is Perpetual.