7. 1996–2000 Renaud et Papi

Guilio Papi far left, myself far right with a group of Singaporean journalists

Renaud et Papi were producing some of the finest complicated watches on the market at that time.

My first task was working on Tourbillons for Audemars Piguet. Tim Grönefeld was my project manager, and his brother Bart managed the overall running of the workshop.

Audemars owned roughly 50% of the company, and during my time at Renaud et Papi they acquired a much larger stake and increased their influence over the day-to-day running of the business.

We lived in an old Swiss farmhouse in the small hamlet of Les Replattes on the outskirts of Le Locle. I built a workshop in one of the bedrooms, installing all of the tools I had bought over the years. 

After three years at Renaud et Papi things began to change. The initial period was a golden time. The team of were of diverse nationalities: Finnish, New Zealand, Dutch, French and even the odd Swiss. Down the road from Renaud et Papi, John and Stephen McGonigle were working at Christophe Claret in another workshop and Kari Voutilainen and Stefan Sarpenova were in Fleurier at Parmiagani.

Towards the end of my time at R&P the multinational team began to break up. Stephen Forsey and Robert Greubel left the company; Simo, one of the Finnish watchmakers central to our group, went back to Finland, as did Stepan Sarpaneva a little later; the Grönefeld brothers went back to the Netherlands and John McGonigle to Ireland. Life changed.

While at R&P I jumped around within the company from Tourbillons to réglage of minute repeaters and grand sonneries. I had a period in prototyping, the time in training and I even helped with tours to the factory, translating (badly) for the journalists that would visit the facility. Eventually, the learning curve tapered off and the magic of the earlier years thinned out and life became a little flat.

It was then that I started to design and build what became known as the Foundation Watch which later gave birth to the brand that would carry my name, and that of Daniela Marin who was the driving force behind Speake-Marin.