page_title: Rolf W. Schnyder
section_title: The industrious force
hierarchical_section_title: Rolf W. Schnyder / Biography / The industrious force
caption_attribution_description: English: Rolf W. Schnyder waterskiing, 2006
context_page_description: Rolf W. Schnyder was a Swiss businessman known for his role as the owner and CEO of watchmaker Ulysse Nardin.
context_section_description: Advancing up the chain of command at Diethelm, Schnyder soon found himself in charge of the consumer products division. He was tasked with the distribution of basic goods from companies such as Procter and Gamble and Union Carbide. Ever the keen businessman, he soon realized that it would be more profitable to switch from imports to local manufacture under licence. This time it was his turn to share his culture — he imparted to his factory workers a Swiss sense of education, supervision and the institution of quality control. Schnyder recalls: “I was impressed with how fast the Thai people could learn new skills and how enthusiastic they were about their work. I could also see, in the way that they worked, that there was a high level of manual skill.”
  Schnyder also played rugby for the Royal Bangkok Sports Club. During this period, Schnyder learned to run large-scale operations. His boundless energy and his ability to be involved in almost every aspect at the factories as well as his uncanny ability with Thai language abetted his success.
  From 1966 to 1968, Schnyder switched gears. He left Thailand for a six-month voyage through the South Sea, sailing from Fiji to Samoa and around the islands of Tahiti and Bora Bora, visited South America and ended up in the head office of Philip Morris in New York where he got an assignment to develop the lucrative cigarette markets of South East Asia. Schnyder returned to Asia, basing himself in Hong Kong during the height of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. He applied for a visa to China to record with camera in hand the historical events that took place in the Empire of the Middle Kingdom. Westerners were not particularly welcome at the time. Having a neutral Swiss passport helped. Schnyder practiced reading verses of the Red Book but still got in trouble. On the last day in Guangzhou he was offered some antique gold carvings which Chinese no longer had the right to possess as they had been declared capitalist merchandise. Since no taxis were available, two hotel waiters offered their help to carry these artifacts to the railway station for the trip back to Hong Kong. On the way, the group was stopped by some Red Guards who were omnipresent in town and countryside. They objected to the fact that a Chinese carried goods for a white foreigner. The two waiters had to drop Schnyder's bags instantly and were sent home. Schnyder had to drop his travel bags as well, was taken to a building occupied by the Red Guards and made to quote verses from the Red Book backward and forward all night long. Only next morning was he released, given some tea and a bowl of rice and sent back to the street corner where the bags had been dropped by the waiters and himself the evening before. Nobody had touched them. It took Schnyder two trips on foot of 30 minutes each to get all his luggage to the railway station. He reached the Lo Wu bridge, the border between China and the then- British colony of Hong Kong, one day behind schedule. Nevertheless, Schnyder was met by a large group of journalists who were eager to buy the many photos which he had shot during the previous five days and which were later published in newspapers around the globe and in the important US magazine, “Life”.
  Schnyder's job with Philip Morris took him around the world and also back to the Philip Morris European headquarters in Switzerland, where he met Charles and Marcel Stern, the cousins of Philippe Stern, president of Patek Philippe. The cousins' owned one of the best watch dial factories in Switzerland and they invited Schnyder for a guided tour.
  As Schnyder watched dials materialize in the skilled hands of factory workers, a blue flash of inspiration blazed through him. He was absolutely certain that Thai workers could learn the trade of dial-making given the opportunity. The vastly lower cost of human labor in the Far East meant that Schnyder could craft watch dials of similar quality at a far lower price per unit which would permit the Swiss watch industry to stay competitive against the lower-priced products emerging from the 
caption: Rolf W. Schnyder waterskiing in 2006.
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