Watch Veterans Glenn, Belmont Retire

By William George Shuster -- JCK Online, 5/1/2006 2:00:00 AM

Longtime U.S. watch industry veteran Hugh Glenn retired Jan. 31 as president of Cyma USA after 40 years in the watch business. He plans to devote his full time to expanding the business of the Sequoia jewelry brand, which is owned and sold by his company, Yves K. Designs.

The new president of the Cyma USA/Hugh Glenn Corp. is Claude Guilgot, president of Cyma S.A., the Swiss parent firm. Continuing on are Michael Sachnowitz, who co-founded Glenn Corp. 23 years ago, as vice president of sales, and Albert Salita as vice president of finance. The company will remain in New York City.

Glenn entered the watch business as a young man in 1966, with his first job as watch buyer at Zale Corp. Subsequently, he worked for Baume & Mercier and Omega, where he was president. He and Sachnowitz, also at Omega, left to start Glenn Corp. and sell Swiss-made luxury Cyma watches, then unknown to U.S. jewelers. Today, the watch is sold in some 600 U.S. jewelry stores.

John Henry Belmont has retired as chief executive of the Richemont Group’s luxury watch division, which includes such top brands as A. Lange & Söhne, Baume & Mercier, IWC, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Officine Panerai, Piaget, and Vacheron Constantin. He continues as a consultant to it. He joined Richemont in 2000, was chief executive officer of Jaeger-LeCoultre and helped integrate it, A. Lange & Söhne, and IWC into the Group. Later, he helped develop Richemont’s watch movement strategy.