The Business of Watches [45] Fears Watches Founder And Chief Executive Officer Nicholas Bowman-Scargill

About this episode

This week on The Business of Watches, an in-depth discussion with Nicholas Bowman-Scargill, the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Fears Watches. Nicholas has packed a lot into his 39 years. For the last decade he's been helming the brand originally founded by his great-great-great grandfather, Edwin Fears, in Bristol, England way back in 1846. Incredibly, Bowman-Scargill wasn't even aware of the Fears brand and family connection when he decided to train as a watchmaker at Rolex in the U.K. That move into watches followed an ill-timed foray into investment banking on the eve of the Global Financial Crisis, in 2008. By the time Bowman-Scargill restarted the brand in 2016, it had been dormant for nearly four decades. Its revival has been an exercise in business challenges that have often been met by practicing the art of project management, a skill set that he and his fellow Brits are uniquely adept at, he says. Fears has now grown to about 15 people and returned to its roots in Bristol. From flirting with bankruptcy to implementing a dress code for employees and overseeing the design and production of a perpetual calendar model, Bowman-Scargill relays the dramatic tale of ho