Maximilian Busser

Maximilian Büsser is a Swiss entrepreneur and founder of the avant-garde boutique watch brand MB&F (2005–present). Prior to MB&F he was the CEO of Harry Winston, Inc. Rare Timepieces (1998 - 2005) and a senior manager at Jaeger-LeCoultre (1991 - 1998). Büsser has lived in Dubai since 2014.

Büsser was born in Milan, Italy, on 21 January 1967. His father, Mario Büsser (1922 – 2001) was a Swiss diplomat, and his mother, Dinoo Cowasji Büsser (1934 - 2018) an Indian national. His parents had met in Bombay and after marrying moved to Milan. In 1971 (when four years old), the Büsser family moved to Switzerland, first to Vevey (Swiss home of Charlie Chaplin) and then a small village called La Croix sur Lutry (in the countryside north of Lausanne). In 1985 Büsser moved to Pully (near Lausanne), where he lived until 1998.

Büsser graduated from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in 1991 with a master's degree in Microtechnology engineering (Masters en microtechnique).

While Büsser left university with the intention of working his way up the ranks of a large international company like Nestlé or Procter & Gamble. However, he was convinced to join the then relatively small Swiss watch brand Jaeger-LeCoultre, which was then struggling to rebuild after the Quartz Crisis, by Henry-John Belmont, then CEO of Jaeger-LeCoultre,with the words, "Do you want to be one among 200,000 in a big corporation, or do you want to be among the four or five of us who can save this beautiful company?"

Büsser worked in a variety of senior management position while at Jaeger-LeCoultre including Product Manager and Sales & Product Marketing manager.

Büsser credits Belmont and Günther Bluemlein (who helped relaunch International Watch Company (IWC), Jaeger-LeCoultre, andA. Lange & Söhne as playing large roles in his early career development.

In 1998 and just 31 years old, Büsser was headhunted from Jaeger-LeCoultre to become CEO of Harry Winston, Inc. Rare Timepieces based in Geneva. At the time Harry Winston, Inc. was still controlled by the Winston family.

In his seven years at Harry Winston Rare Timepieces Büsser (bought by The Swatch Group in 2013) increased revenue from $8 million to $80 million and created the ground-breaking Opus series of ultra-complicated mechanical watches in collaboration with independent watchmakers.

While at Harry Winston, Inc. Rare Timepieces Büsser realized that he derived his greatest pleasure and satisfaction when developing concept-style watches for the Opus series, which motivated him to create his own brand and focus on creating three-dimensional kinetic art that he calls "Horological Machines".

Büsser's goal for MB&F (for Maximilian Büsser and Friends) is for the company to remain small enough not to require a middle layer of management, which Büsser feels is detrimental to creativity. To that end he has capped the head count at 20 people and sells his timepieces in the hundreds rather than the thousands, although the majority of the brand's watches sell for upwards of $50,000.

Büsser created the first MB&F M.A.D. Gallery in 2011 in Geneva, Switzerland. "M.A.D." stands for Mechanical Art Devices. Büsser considers his timepieces to be kinetic art and created his own art gallery to display his sculptured Horological Machines in the context of mechanical art by other artists from all over the world.

The M.A.D. Gallery concept has proved successful and, in addition to Geneva, there are now M.A.D. Galleries in Dubai, Geneva, Taipei and Hong Kong .