Simon Wolf on Leading WOLF: Balancing tradition, innovation and a 190-year legacy
[Interview] WOLF, a family-owned business for over five generations, is celebrating its 190th anniversary. CEO Simon Wolf reflects on the brand’s enduring success, balancing tradition with innovation, and adapting to modern challenges like e-commerce and Brexit.
From a small silversmith in 19th-century Germany to a global luxury brand, WOLF’s legacy thrives through commitment to craftsmanship, sustainability and constant evolution. Wolf discusses the importance of building a strong team culture, driving innovation, and preserving the company’s rich history while leading it into the future.
WOLF has been a family-owned business for five generations. How do you maintain a strong sense of family culture within a global brand?
We make a lot of effort to get our teams around the world together as often as possible. Whether it’s having lunch in the office at a communal dining table or an annual sales meetings where we discuss business strategy and have some downtime together. Regular global meetings on Teams ensures everyone is constantly in touch. We also have a very successful exchange programme between our three offices, LA, Hong Kong and West Sussex in the UK. Swapping employees to work with their counterparts has worked wonders for team performance.
Celebrating 190 years is a monumental achievement. What do you believe has been the key to WOLF’s longevity and success over nearly two centuries?
Apart from the obvious, which is great people who are dedicated to their roles within the business, it’s been the tenacity, inventiveness and beautiful designs. Holding ourselves to our core values, always trying to find ways to make products better for our customers and working really hard as a team.
What are some of the most significant changes you’ve witnessed in the luxury retail sector since you took the helm at WOLF, and how has the brand adapted to these shifts?
The internet and ecommerce particularly have obviously been huge changes in the retail sector since I took over as CEO. We are constantly reviewing our digital offering via our website and developing our digital marketing. The demand for luxury automatic watches and fine jewellery has increased year on year which has meant increased demand for what we do, so keeping up with demand has been challenging. Brexit hit us hard initially in supporting our European customers effectively, we overcame this challenge by creating a warehouse in the Netherlands which now supports all of Europe.
Having started as an apprentice under your father, how has your role within WOLF evolved over time? What have been the most significant challenges and rewards on this journey?
As the company has grown so much in size over the last 25+ years I have had to “let go” of making all decisions, I now entrust so much to the great people that work with me. It has been a gradual process, but all along I wanted to build a system within the company that meant that it works seamlessly without me being involved in every minutiae.
As CEO, how do you balance the need to respect and preserve the company’s rich history while driving innovation and ensuring WOLF remains competitive in the modern market?
I am lucky that my predecessors always pushed the business forward and made innovations whether in product development or business acumen. Every generation brought something new to the equation so in fact my legacy is to keep challenging what we do and how do it better and in doing that I am preserving the company values very well!
Looking back on your journey with WOLF, what advice would you offer to the next generation of leaders within the company?
I am not done yet, but if I am pushed to be in that position I would say to challenge constantly of themselves and to the team – is that the best way to do that? Is there a better way? Don’t stand still always look to improve and innovate, just like the generations before me.
In what ways do you see the legacy of previous generations reflected in the products and decisions WOLF makes today?
Well, this year that’s an easy question for the product side – for the 190th anniversary of the business we designed five products to honour and commemorate the generations. Silver for Philipp Wolf I, the silversmith from Hanau, Ida for Ida Wilhelmina the incredibly strong woman, wife of Philipp Wolf II who took over the business when he could no longer work due to ill health. Ballet, commemorating the fact that my grandfather invented the original musical ballerina box, Philipp to bring back the classic seventies design my father produced in the seventies. Finally Earth, my collection made of apple leather and recycled materials plus innovative Bluetooth technology to programme the single, double and triple watch winders in the collection.
Decisions, well there have been some strong characters in my family and they all made hard decisions, moving to a new country to start a new life, taking over a business with no prior knowledge because she had to support her children, daring to challenge the establishment about the environment in Sweden, progressing the business into being stocked in prestigious retail locations, so I have big shoes to fill and I am determined to push WOLF towards an innovative and sustainable future.
What elements of WOLF have remained unchanged since its founding, and why do you think they continue to be relevant in today’s market?
Making beautiful boxes is how we started in Hanau in Germany in 1834, we continue to do that now. The materials we choose to use to make them and the innovative patented technologies across our products which we have added to the ‘boxes’ makes us continue to be relevant and lead the market.
