Interview: Fortis Owners Jupp and Petra Philipp on Building the Brand Their Way

Fortis was originally intended as an investment. Today, the historic Swiss watch brand shapes the daily lives of Jupp and Petra Philipp. What began more or less by chance has evolved into a shared entrepreneurial project, one they now describe as their “third child.” In conversation with WatchTime, the couple explains why market research plays only a minor role in their decision-making, how a husband-and-wife team can successfully run a company together, and why a truly robust watch needs one thing above all: credible testing.

From Family Business to the Watch Industry

WatchTime: Mr. Philipp, you originally come from a very different industry. Was taking over a Swiss watch brand ever part of the plan?

Jupp Philipp: No, not at all. I come from a family business that has been around for roughly 100 years and is now being run by the fourth generation. We produce fruit juice concentrates and food colorings. I worked there for more than 20 years and remain involved in the company together with my siblings. At the same time, I had been thinking for quite a while about taking on something new or making another investment. But if I was going to do something again, it had to be something I genuinely enjoyed. Everything else I looked at back then either seemed boring to me or simply wasn’t the right fit.

WatchTime: How did Fortis enter the picture?

Jupp Philipp: More or less by chance. We were actually trying to help a friend sell another company, and that connection eventually led us to Fortis. We drove over, I took a look at the company, and pretty quickly I said, “This is exactly what I want to do.”

Petra Philipp: Originally, it really was supposed to be an investment. I liked the idea of building something in Switzerland as well, also for our two sons. We never expected it to become Fortis, or for the brand to bring so much joy into both our lives. In many ways, Fortis has become our third child.

Jupp Philipp: From the beginning, I knew it shouldn’t become a hobby. What I underestimated, however, was how slowly the watch industry moves. I’ve taken over other companies before. Normally, the first phase is very intense, but after two or three years you largely have the structures under control. Fortis was different. I never imagined how difficult it would be to get things moving in the watch industry, or how long everything would take.

WatchTime: And yet you now describe Fortis as your life's work. 

Jupp Philipp: Yes. A former sales director of mine, who had already worked in the watch industry before I came along, once told me: “It’s very difficult to get into this business and even harder to get out again.” Apparently, he was right.

"Fortis is our third child"

WatchTime: When did you realize just how extensive your involvement would become?

Petra Philipp: We really had no idea how the watch industry worked. We hadn’t anticipated how much time would ultimately go into trade shows, events, and dealing with people. Nor did we expect the whole thing to become so all-encompassing and at the same time, so much fun.

Jupp Philipp: Normally, after the first intense phase with a company, I would gradually step back, build up the team, and hand over responsibility. Of course, I never withdrew completely. But I certainly didn’t expect to be involved in Fortis’s day-to-day business seven days a week and to be on the road for the company almost around the clock. That’s where we are now and we keep going because we genuinely enjoy it.

WatchTime: Were there ever moments when you seriously questioned the decision?

Jupp Philipp: Not the decision itself. Of course, you regularly question whether you’ve chosen the right path in a particular situation. You have to keep challenging yourself and the system. That’s the only way to improve. But giving up was never an option.

Petra Philipp: In life, there are always moments when you have to decide: Do you move forward or backward? We’re people who move forward.

Jupp Philipp: I would never have bought the company without Petra’s agreement, though. I told her very clearly beforehand that I would hardly be home during the first few years. The distance was simply too great to commute every day. I had to be there and run the company.

Two People, Clearly Defined Roles

WatchTime: Many couples would probably advise against running a company together. Why does it work for you?

Jupp Philipp: I come from a family business, and there was always a very clear rule: no friends and no relatives in the company, because things can go wrong very quickly. Spouses never worked in the business either. So I can understand why many people advise against it. It probably works for us because each of us knows our role and understands what we’re good at, and what we’re not. Neither of us interferes in an area where we know the other person is better. Maybe that’s also one of the reasons we’ve worked so well as a couple for 26 years.

Petra Philipp: I wasn’t involved from the beginning. Our children were still quite young at the time. Later, I had more time and wanted to contribute. At first, I booked flights and hotels. Then at some point it became: if you’re already organizing the travel and the trade shows, you might as well think about the booth. It grew step by step. Eventually I said, “If I’m planning the shows, I want to come along too.”

Jupp Philipp: Event management is pure stress. Most people don’t want to do it. Petra, on the other hand, organizes these things with real passion and enjoyment. So it was obvious to me that this was exactly the area where she should get involved with Fortis.

WatchTime: How do you avoid interfering with each other’s work?

Jupp Philipp: That applies not just to the two of us, but to the whole team. If someone is responsible for a task, they own it. Of course, we ask for opinions and discuss things together. But once a decision has been made, no one keeps interfering. That’s probably one of the biggest problems in many business partnerships.

Petra Philipp: Completely honest communication is also important. If one of us doesn’t like something, we don’t stay silent. We talk about it and find a solution.

Jupp Philipp: And we don’t sit in the same office. Petra works from home, and I’m at the company. There are about 200 kilometers between us. That works quite well.

From Behind the Scenes to the Face of the Brand

WatchTime: Today, you are very visible for Fortis at events and trade shows. Was that role familiar to you from the beginning?

Jupp Philipp: Not at all. I had always preferred staying in the background. It was never my goal to become the public face of the brand or to be the person constantly stepping onto a stage. But with Fortis, it became clear fairly quickly that a brand like this needs a visible personality behind it. Of course, people want to know who stands behind the company. What I had underestimated was how much time I would spend traveling, meeting people, and putting myself out there. Today, I really enjoy it. It matters, people respond to it, and I’ve grown into the role. That was probably one of the biggest surprises of the entire project.

WatchTime: Fortis feels much more uncompromising today than it did a few years ago. Did the repositioning mean consciously giving up certain customers?

Jupp Philipp: You never deliberately give up customers. A customer is a customer. But of course, you can no longer satisfy every individual wish from the old fan base. We’re a small company, not a supermarket. In the past, Fortis sometimes tried to offer almost anything that seemed sellable. From the beginning, we knew that had to change. I want to make watches that I would wear myself, watches that fit me and fit us as a brand. Otherwise, I’m not interested. Of course, some longtime fans don’t understand every decision and make their frustration known. You have to deal with that. But a small brand needs a clear position and the discipline to follow it consistently.

WatchTime: Who is the Fortis customer you are focusing on today?

Jupp Philipp: Fundamentally, it’s someone with an active lifestyle. We make robust tool watches. Historically, these watches were designed primarily for professional use. Today, we’re trying to bring that same idea into the luxury segment. There is, for example, the collector who owns very expensive watches at home but spends the weekend mountain biking, climbing, swimming, or riding a motorcycle. He still wants to wear a high-quality watch, just perhaps not one that costs $20,000. Then there is another customer who has worked hard, saved up, and is finally buying his first really good watch. He wears it day and night, perhaps he’s a craftsman, a master painter, or an entrepreneur. Internally, we call the first on the “Weekend Warrior” and the other the “Weekday Warrior.” Both matter to us. I know both sides myself. My first good watch was a Fortis, and I wore it day and night. Thirty years later, you may have built a larger collection and occasionally leave the more valuable pieces in the safe. Then, for a rock concert or an active weekend, you reach for the rugged Fortis again.

“I have never read a market study in my life”

WatchTime: Many brands develop new models based on extensive market research. What role does that play at Fortis?

Jupp Philipp: I have never read a market study in my life. 

Petra Philipp: We don't follow trends. We have a vision and our own ideas, and we stick to them. You can’t please everyone anyway. So it’s better to do your own thing and stand behind it than to make something simply because others tell you that’s what the market wants.

Jupp Philipp: In the end, we have to be able to talk about our watches with genuine passion. There’s no point in developing a model just because it happens to be on trend if it doesn’t interest me personally. We want to make timeless watches. Twenty or 30 years from now, a customer should still be able to look at their watch and think, “I’m glad I bought it back then.” If you make a pink watch simply because pink is popular right now, there’s a good chance no one will care about it a few years from now.

WatchTime: So how do you know whether a watch will work?

Jupp Philipp: I go to events and talk to people. If someone sees one of our watches and their eyes light up, I know we’re on the right track. If they don’t, we’re probably not. I don’t need a market study to tell me that.

Petra Philipp: Personal contact is incredibly important to us. At major trade shows, but also at small events, we can really have conversations: What interests you? What matters to you? What do you actually need in everyday life? We take those insights back into the development process.

WatchTime: Is there a Fortis model you personally love that has not performed quite as well commercially as you expected?

Jupp Philipp: Actually, my favorite watch is the one that sells the least within the collection. I’d rather not say which one. One reason is that the current trend is toward smaller watches. I have a large wrist, and I still like larger watches that are proportionally right for me. I don’t think it looks good when someone with a larger wrist wears a watch that is far too small. Of course, the reverse is equally true. The model I’m talking about is very large, so perhaps it really only suits 20 or 30 percent of wrists. But it’s still not a slow seller. We don’t really have any models that fail to sell altogether. Some simply develop differently from what we expected.

Petra Philipp: Sometimes, while you’re designing a watch, you’re convinced it’s going to be a huge success. Then it takes two or three years for people to notice it and understand what it’s about. After that, it can still develop extremely well.

What Tool Watches Often Get Wrong

WatchTime: What do you consider one of the most underrated technical or functional features in a mechanical watch?

Petra Philipp: For me, it’s an adjustable clasp on a metal bracelet. That’s an absolute must. I don’t understand why every watch doesn’t have one. Especially in summer, I sometimes adjust the bracelet several times a day as my wrist size changes.

Jupp Philipp: Another underrated topic is titanium. Many customers don’t realize just how good the material is. In many respects, I consider titanium superior to stainless steel, yet a lot of buyers still prefer steel. If it were entirely up to me, we would use much more titanium.

WatchTime: What is often missing from watches that are nevertheless marketed as especially robust?

Jupp Philipp: Testing. Testing. Testing. If you really want to build rugged watches, you have to stand behind your claims and verify them. That’s why one of our first investments was a large testing laboratory. A lot of brands make claims they can’t fully validate with their own infrastructure. In some cases, you can tell from the construction alone that certain statements are difficult to believe. And yet they are still communicated because they are what customers want to hear.

Petra Philipp: Water resistance is another example. There are high-end tool watches that are only water-resistant to 100 meters. For me, that’s not enough. If a watch is supposed to be genuinely robust, I expect more.

Jupp Philipp: Another thing many companies underestimate is how transparent the market has become. In the past, a brand could control its advertising and its claims through just a few channels. Today, collectors communicate globally through social media and the internet. Sooner or later, everything comes to light. If a claim isn’t true, people will find out. A lot of major brands still underestimate that. That’s why honesty matters.

Space Travel, Translated into Everyday Life

WatchTime: If a misson to Mars were launching tomorrow, which Fortis would belong on the wrist?

Jupp Philipp: The Novonaut., of course. The one and only.

WatchTime: Fortis is closely associated with space travel. Is that connection sometimes misunderstood?

Jupp Philipp: Yes. Right now, many brands are looking to space because lunar and space missions are once again in the spotlight. But with our space-tested and space-capable watches, the point isn’t that the customer is going to fly into space. Our goal is to build watches that are exceptionally robust, but still beautiful. Watches designed for the toughest conditions. And there are few environments more demanding than space. For us, spaceflight is a way of translating extreme testing into everyday relevance. If a watch can withstand the vibration and acceleration of a rocket launch, it can handle mountain biking.

Petra Philipp: Or playing the drums.

Jupp Philipp: Or golf. If a watch can cope with extreme temperature fluctuations, it can also sit in the sun on a beach, heat up considerably, and then go straight into cold water. So the question isn’t, “What am I supposed to do with a space watch?” The point is: if it can survive those conditions, it can survive your everyday life.

Petra Philipp: And we test to exactly those standards. That’s why we send cases and movements into the stratosphere or launch them on rockets. We’ve equipped movements with cameras and sensors to study in real time how those conditions affect them. Measurements are taken before and after.

Jupp Philipp: And if we discover that something isn’t right, we work on it and improve it. That’s the difference. Our real motto is: the most beautiful watches for the toughest jobs.

WatchTime: Which watches do you wear most often personally?

Petra Philipp: That’s not an easy question for us because we have the entire collection at home, around 70 models. Every morning, we decide all over again who is going to wear what. We genuinely wear every model because we want to know how it feels on the wrist. Right now, I especially enjoy wearing the Flieger F-39, and after that probably the Stratoliner.

Jupp Philipp: I wear all of them as well. But I still catch myself reaching for three models most often: the Triple GMT Titanium, which is my daily rocker; the Stratoliner, which I consider one of our strongest watches; and the Vagabond, which for me is the perfect travel watch.

Fortis in Ten Years From Now

WatchTime:Ten years from now, how would you know, youn have made the right decisions with Fortis?

Petra Philipp: What matters to us is that we continue to grow in a healthy way without losing who we are. Fortis should remain a small, family-oriented company that provides a good living for the people behind it. In an ideal world, perhaps one of our two sons would already be involved by then. One is 19, the other 17. They’re not ready for that yet, and we don’t want to put any pressure on them. But of course, it would be nice.

Jupp Philipp: The ideal would be a healthy family business that can stand on its own. In ten years, I’ll be 60. At that point, it would be good to start gradually handing the company over to the next generation. I’ll probably never step away completely. But a transition like that can easily take five or ten years. It has to happen gradually.

Petra Philipp: We have no ambition to build a global corporation or a huge group. Ideally, we’ll still be in the same building we are today, perhaps modernized and renovated.

Jupp Philipp: And we’d like to be able to say: the company works, the people are happy, we can still do what we do with passion, and we don’t have to chase every trend. That would be the ideal outcome.

A Family Reunion in Düsseldorf

WatchTime: Is there another highlight you’re looking forward to this year?

Petra Philipp: We always enjoy meeting people in person. So we hope readers will come and see us at shows and events. WatchTime Düsseldorf has almost become a family reunion for us.

Jupp Philipp: WatchTime Düsseldorf is the event of the year. For us, it has almost become a company outing. Some employees are genuinely offended if they’re not allowed to come along.

This article was first published by WatchTime Germany.