Patek Philippe Has Two Heirs and One Presidency

Every minute repeater Patek Philippe produces must pass one final test before it leaves the workshop: Thierry Stern needs to hear it. The fourth-generation owner listens as the watch chimes, then either approves its sound or sends it back for adjustment—the same judgments his father and grandfather made before him.

Choosing his successor will involve more than who gets the top job. Patek Philippe’s next president will help determine how many watches it makes, which retailers sell them and how far the company can grow without sacrificing quality. Stern, 55, expects to step down in about a decade. That gives his sons, Adrien and Tristan, years to make their case for a position only one can hold.

Two Sons, One Presidency

In his early twenties, Stern was sent to work at German watch retailer Wempe in Frankfurt. While changing batteries in Movado watches, he damaged several by pressing too hard. Decades later, Stern is making sure his sons learn the business from the ground up, too. 

His elder son, Adrien, has followed a similar path. Adrien spent eight months in Singapore during his first year with Patek Philippe before joining the company full-time in 2025, at 24. He initially told his father that he loved watches but worried working for Patek Philippe would ruin that. The experience changed his mind.

Tristan, the younger son, has taken a more technical and less public route. At 16, he entered Geneva’s watchmaking school, alternating his studies with training inside Patek Philippe’s manufacture. Now 20, he is expected to join the family business in the coming years. No timetable or prospective role has been disclosed, and Tristan has not publicly addressed the succession. Stern has acknowledged the difficulty of being both father and mentor.

The plan still depends on at least one son proving willing and capable of assuming the presidency. Stern has said that if neither succeeds him, he would retain family ownership while appointing a non-owner executive in his place, effectively skipping a generation.

Patek Philippe already has a chief executive outside the Stern family. Laurent Bernasconi, a company veteran of about two decades, succeeded Claude Peny as CEO in July 2024. Thierry Stern remains president and the company remains owned by his family.

The succession question, then, is who eventually takes Stern’s job—not Bernasconi’s.

The Multibillion Business They Stand to Inherit 

Morgan Stanley and LuxeConsult estimate that Patek Philippe generated 2.5 billion Swiss francs, approximately $3.2 billion, from roughly 72,000 watches in 2025. Estimated revenue rose by 9 percent even as Swiss watch exports declined for a second consecutive year and industry volumes fell nearly 5 percent.

Managing scarcity will be part of the job. Waiting lists for coveted models can stretch for years, but Stern has resisted increasing production simply to meet demand and has threatened retailers caught supplying known flippers. Since becoming president in 2009, Stern has nearly halved Patek Philippe’s global retail network, from approximately 500 locations to 259. Stern argues that those limits protect exclusivity. On the secondary market, coveted Patek models remain immediately available.

Patek Philippe tested those limits with the Cubitus. Introduced in 2024, the Cubitus was Patek Philippe’s first new collection in 25 years and immediately divided watch collectors. Its price raised another question: how much more would Patek buyers pay? LuxeConsult founder Olivier Müller compared the steel Cubitus, introduced at approximately 35,000 Swiss francs, with the discontinued steel Nautilus Ref. 5711, whose retail price was 28,500 francs. To Müller, the gap was an example of the watch industry testing the limits of its pricing power.

Whether it be Adrien or Tristan, whoever succeeds Stern will face the same question: how much can Patek Philippe grow without undermining the scarcity their father has worked to preserve?

 What Happens to the Spare? 

The question has become more immediate since the death of Stern’s father, Philippe, on June 14. Philippe became managing director in 1977 and president in 1993 before handing the presidency to his son in 2009. Philippe’s tenure included the launch of the Nautilus, Calibre 89 and the Patek Philippe Museum.

Adrien has already completed an overseas placement and joined Patek Philippe full-time. Tristan has yet to assume a formal position within the company. 

Stern has roughly a decade to decide who comes after him. One son could inherit the presidency—and with it the final authority represented by Stern’s approval of every chime. Although Stern has said that both sons want to work at Patek Philippe, he has not publicly explained whether the son who does not become president would remain at the company, retain an ownership interest or leave the family business altogether.