Team Captains Luke Donald of England and Zach Johnson of The United States with the Ryder Cup Trophy at the Colosseum in Rome

Guy Kinnings is the Deputy CEO, Ryder Cup Director & Chief Commercial Officer at European Tour Group & Ryder Cup. Ahead of the Ryder Cup in Rome this weekend, he speaks to Samantha Welsh about the growing enthusiasm for the sport from the next generation and the organisation’s focus on making golf more sustainable

LUX: You are a renowned leader in the golf world; where would you say your focus and relatability have come from?
GK: I originally trained as a lawyer in London and that gave me a good grounding in the commercial world. But as a lifelong sports fan, I always knew I wanted to gravitate towards that world. It’s been three decades for me in the world of golf, and I’ve worked on virtually every aspect of the professional game and enjoyed working with pretty much everyone involved in the game. I worked in every aspect of golf (event staging, sales, media etc) but I also spent many years as a player manager/agent. That job requires you to be a salesman, lawyer, confidante, all-round sounding board and sometimes a shoulder to cry on. I learned the ropes from the legendary Mark McCormack at IMG, who managed the likes of Arnold Palmer and Gary Player and basically invented the role of a modern sports agent. I could not have asked for a better mentor. The Tour is ultimately a Members’ run organisation, so the players are the shareholders that I answer to. Athletes are a unique breed who I have a huge amount of admiration for and I’d like to think I’ve learned what makes them tick.

It’s also crucial to be passionate about what you do if you want to succeed – and I love my job. I get to travel to amazing places (visiting Ryder Cup venues and the legendary Augusta National is an annual highlight) and to spend time with incredibly talented people. I also have an amazing wife and family. She has always been very understanding about the travel and late-night phone calls! Sport is ultimately a relationship-based business and golf tends to attract great people, which helps. It may be a niche sport, but it punches well above its weight because its core values – things like integrity, inclusivity and sportsmanship – are so appealing.

European Ryder Cup Director, Guy Kinnings and European Ryder Cup Captain, Luke Donald

LUX: How do you think the pandemic affected the global golf industry?
GK: The pandemic was a big shock to the entire sports and entertainment industry, but our Tour faced more challenges than most because of our global nature. We are a travelling circus in many respects, visiting 26 countries this season. When air travel was severely restricted and fans had to stay away, it became a battle for survival. But one of my proudest career moments was seeing how my colleagues managed to overcome so many hurdles. We completely revamped our schedule and quickly set up a sector leading testing and bubble system for players and our staff, which meant we could get back playing earlier than almost any other sport. This allowed us to fulfil broadcaster and sponsor obligations and keep our players competing for prize funds. We learnt a lot and have come out of the pandemic even stronger than before it. It brought the best out of our people at a tough moment.

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The pandemic has also been a key factor in driving a big boost in the popularity of golf. We saw big spikes in participation across 2020 and 2021, particularly amongst younger players, and it’s great to see that this trend has continued. I feel like golf is undergoing a cultural moment right now and the launch of the new ‘Full Swing‘ series on Netflix will only help drive this by showing off the sport and its personalities to a new audience. Of course, we also have the Ryder Cup in September, which is always a moment in time when the sport enters mainstream consciousness.

Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland at the DS Automobiles Italian Open 2022 at Marco Simone Golf Club in Rome 2022

LUX: What was behind the ET rebrand as DP World Tour and how has this brought about the vision for driving golf further?
GK: We sat down with DP World, a long-standing Tour partner, at the 2019 DP World Tour Championship – our season ending event – and discussed what a bigger relationship might look like. Becoming the Tour’s Title Partner was discussed and it quickly became apparent that there were a lot of synergies there. Changing our brand, with all its history, was not something we took lightly but from a very basic branding perspective the “European Tour” name was increasingly a misnomer anyway. Pre-pandemic, 27 of our 47 events were outside the continent and the idea of rebranding to a “world” Tour had already been floated, so what better way to cement this global footprint than by partnering with a company whose very name encapsulates that?

The extra investment they are making has also helped us to elevate the Tour in every way. We’ve had record prize funds for the past two seasons – no mean feat given the pandemic and global economic uncertainty – and unlocked new funds to further invest in our Golf for Good programme. A good example is the launch of the G4D (Golf for the Disabled) Tour last year. We could create an entirely new Tour for the best disability golfers in the world, who play the same course, the same week, as DP World Tour events across a nine-event schedule. Making golf more inclusive is a big passion point for the Tour and this was a major statement in this area.

Guy Kinnings presents the trophy to Juan Postigo Arce of Spain after winning the G4D event at Abu Dhabi Golf Club

LUX: What is your vision for raising the profile of the women’s game?
GK: Whilst we are a men’s professional Tour first and foremost, we have worked with our friends at the Ladies European Tour and LPGA Tour to create a series of mixed gender events. In 2022 there was the Volvo Scandinavian Mixed and the ISPS Handa World Invitational. These are great opportunities to show that women’s golf is just as entertaining as the men’s game. In fact, we had the first ever female winner on the DP World Tour in 2021 as Sweden’s Linn Grant won the Scandinavian Mixed. She played unbelievable golf that week and I’m proud that we could give her a platform to compete against her male counterparts. I truly believe that golf can be the most inclusive game in the world. The handicap system in the amateur game means that people can compete against each other on an equal footing, regardless of their skill level, and our mixed gender events are just one way to showcase that ethos. I am also a big fan of the Solheim Cup – which is played the week before the Ryder Cup later this year.

LUX: Have your team had success in reducing environmental impacts?
GK: 2022 saw us measuring our carbon footprint across eight key tournaments to identify a baseline to work from, so full data on our emission reductions have started coming through this year. We have seen some really positive developments. For example, we require a lot of temporary power generators at our tournaments, because a golf tournament is basically held in a large field, and we have switched from traditional diesel generators to bio fuelled powered ones which is reducing emissions by up to 94%. We have also reworked our schedule to try and group tournaments together geographically to reduce air travel and we will be making more headway on that in 2024. We have also started trialling remote TV production techniques with our partner Tata to reduce the amount of people we fly out to events. The recent Singapore Classic was a major trial for us in this respect. We had 29% fewer TV staff in Singapore – they were working remotely in the UK from Stockley Park – which saved 140 tonnes of CO2, the equivalent of 850,000km in a diesel powered family car.

Rory McIlroy of Northen Irleand at the DP World Tour Championship on the Earth Course at Jumeirah Golf Estates, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

LUX: While you can create KPIs for courses, real estate, logistics, materiel, processes, how do you guide behaviours and set standards for spectators, fans?
GK: We have to bring fans on this journey with us. We have tens of thousands of spectators watching our events each tournament day and they travel to and from the event. Fan travel is included in our net zero commitment, so we need to encourage behaviour change. We can do many things ourselves to help guide them to be more sustainable, such as offering refillable water stations to reduce single use plastic use, offer vegan food stalls, or provide incentives to travel by public transport. But at the end of the day there is only so much we can do and personal responsibility takes over. But sport can be a powerful tool to educate people, so in 2023 we have been really trying to get the message out there to spectators that sustainability is important. We’re launching a fan-focused campaign at the Betfred British Masters where the Tour will be planting 100 trees for every player that manages to drive the iconic par 4 10th hole at the Belfry. Fans can also have a go themselves in a simulator experience. It’s one way to authentically incorporate sustainability into the on-course action, which is not always an easy thing to do. We will also be providing a mechanism at the Ryder Cup where fans on site will be able to calculate their travel footprint and make a payment to offset it.

LUX: LUX approaches the subject of carbon offsetting with care. The World Economic Forum warns it ‘can cause people to disassociate themselves from the issue and deflect attention from the immediate dangers posed by climate change’: is ETG set directly on a path to net zero?
GK: We are indeed. In fact, we recently became the first pro golf Tour to set a net zero target when we signed up to the United Nations Sports for Climate Action Framework. We have now committed to halving our emissions by 50% by 2030 and being fully net zero carbon by 2040. As you say, carbon offsetting alone is simply not enough, not least because some off-setting projects can take many decades to have any effect, so it should only ever be seen as complementary to a more robust climate mitigation effort.

Read more: Kelly Russell Catella on sustainable urban planning

LUX: Where is there a role for carbon offsetting and when will you get to carbon neutral?
GK: There will always be certain emissions we incur when staging a golf tournament that are unavoidable, and this is where carbon offsetting can be utilised alongside a robust climate mitigation programme. Off-setting by itself as a standalone approach is not enough of course, and the sports industry seems to be getting that message. We understand that and have embarked on an ambitious climate mitigation programme to reduce our carbon emissions. Some of our events are already carbon neutral – our five Rolex Series events, that represent our biggest tournaments, is carbon neutral this year. The next step, which will take several years, is to get to net zero carbon, which has required a root and branch review of how we stage a tournament and where we can do things differently. Thankfully, our operations teams fully embrace this mission and are passionate about making their events as sustainable as possible – harnessing a little internal competition is not a bad thing in that respect!

Luke Donald of England and Zach Johnson of United States during at Marco Simone Golf Club

LUX: Is driving sustainability having any impact on sponsorship and prize-money? We would love to hear about the approach with partners on working toward sustainability goals.
GK: Without a doubt, and as Chief Commercial Officer I’m at the heart of these conversations. Virtually every sponsorship conversation I have will turn to sustainability at some point. If you do not have a credible sustainability strategy, then sponsors will look elsewhere. We hired our first Head of Sustainability in 2021 to drive this work internally and launched a revamped Green Drive sustainability strategy. This has detailed plans for how we will reduce our carbon footprint. Sponsors are drawn to our leadership in this area and what is really compelling is the ability to work together to use a sponsor’s technology and expertise to help us get to net zero. For example, using BMW’s electric vehicle fleet to transport players and staff at tournaments, or working with our partner OceanTee (who make sustainable golf products) to roll out tees made from bamboo and reusable water bottles at events. These relationships have practical advantages for us and create great brand storytelling opportunities for a sponsor, so it’s a win-win situation. So whilst there’s a moral obligation to do the right thing, let’s not forget that being sustainable makes business sense as well. It’s a virtuous circle.

LUX: We are excited for the Ryder Cup. What is the winning formula for this legendary sporting event?
GK: The Ryder Cup is the moment when golf really enters mainstream culture – it’s up there with the Super Bowl, the World Cup and the Olympics in that respect. When working on it you’re very aware that it is something special, so you have a responsibility to protect and nurture it. In terms of a winning formula, first things first it’s very tribal and this helps bring the casual fan along for the ride. Even if you are not an avid golfer, you can feel an allegiance to Team Europe or Team USA. It also means more to the players. Golf can be quite an insular sport at the pro level, so these guys love coming together every two years and playing a team sport. We also create an unbelievable atmosphere on the first tee. It’s a real amphitheatre and the players all say it’s the most nervous they ever feel. Rome 2023 promises to be particularly special as the location is so iconic. You can actually see St Peter’s Basilica from various spots on the course, so spectators can enjoy one of the world’s great cities when not watching golf.

The Ryder Cup is being held in Rome on Friday 29 Sept – Sunday 1 Oct 2023

Find out more: europeantour.com/dpworld-tour

Rapha aims to use recycled materials and organic natural fibres across their products

Francois Convercey is the newly appointed CEO of luxury cycling brand Rapha. Here he speaks to LUX about the company’s sustainability initiatives and the need for greater age and gender diversity in cycling

LUX: How has the structure of Rapha changed with the renewed focus on cycling and its benefits since the pandemic?
Francois Convercey: I wouldn’t say that the pandemic and its involvement in cycling actually changed our strategies or the organisation of our business. Rapha already had the focus of making cycling the most popular sport in the world. From day one, we had the ambition of making cycling aspirational and beautiful, and to get as many people as we could to fall in love with the sport.

As much as the pandemic got people to turn their heads towards the outdoors and cycling, it actually acted as a catalyst towards our original purpose and strategies more than anything else. There was a much broader receptive audience for us to engage with – but all the different building blocks and strategies that we had put in place a decade before the pandemic were still very much relevant in the way we have developed our pricing structure and the way we have made the brand more approachable and more relevant to more people. This made it easier for us to capitalise on the renewed interest in cycling – the way we set up as a business, being a direct-to-consumer business in the first place. The pandemic didn’t change much, but it allowed us to accelerate and grow more quickly. It hasn’t made us shift or change the direction of travel for the business. It just reinforced our belief that we are on the right track.

Rapha CEO Francois Convercey

LUX: What do you believe are the imbalances which need to be addressed by sporting brands in conversations about gender equality and diversity?
FC: Cycling as a sport has imbalances which we are trying to address, although it is a long journey. Gender diversity is definitely one of those, which starts at the pinnacle end of the sport, at racing. Equity and equality when it comes to world tour racing and bike racing as a whole is still very imbalanced and focused on male races. Female races have only begun to be broadcasted in the last couple of years. The Tour de France, which is the cycling world’s biggest sporting event and one of the top ten sporting events in the world, didn’t have a women’s tour until 1955, which was then stopped for thirty years, and only reinstated last year. There are still lots of things to be done to provide balance when it comes to media exposure, broadcasting, prize money and salaries for professional cyclists.

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We try to help drive this balance through the storytelling we do, through our initiatives. During last year’s Tour de France we had a collaboration with a streetwear brand PALACE, using our men’s racing team as a billboard to promote the women’s tour. We are making investments on the women’s tour, sponsoring the women’s world tour team, spending 50% of our marketing money on content and athletes on minorities – women and individuals from under-represented backgrounds, which is part of our impact commitment as a brand. I think the gender balance is one of the key imbalances.

Members of the Rapha Cycling Club coming together

There is definitely an element of age; we want more of the youth to look at cycling as an amazing thing to do. Cycling isn’t the most approachable or accessible sport there is – a bike is more expensive than a pair of running shoes, it requires more time and sometimes infrastructures. Five years ago at Rapha, we began supporting cycling at its grassroots and breaking down barriers to make the sport more accessible to young people and under-represented individuals, and people from under-privileged backgrounds. Over the past five years, the Rapha Foundation donated over $5 million in grants to 38 different grantees who all have concrete initiatives to help break down accessibility to the sport and to support under-privileged kids to have access to cycling – whether it’s supporting programs in schools, or young talent programs. We’ve recently partnered with USA Cycling as part of a program called Search for Speed, which is a track cycling talent identification program, looking for the next US track talent for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

Gender balance is key, age balance is key. The third to look at is accessibility and the role that cycling can play in helping mitigate access to education and healthcare. There have been fantastic initiatives such as World Bicycle Relief, which we have supported over the years and continue to support with the Rapha Foundation, which gives bikes to communities who need bikes for basic life needs – whether it’s education for children to travel to school and not have to walk, or to provide a level of healthcare and health benefits which individuals deserve. The bike can be an amazing tool to break down accessibility barriers for under-privileged communities.

Items from Rapha’s exclusive Rapha + Paul Smith RCC Collection, launched in 2023

LUX: How do you balance promoting professional cycling and equipment whilst also trying to encourage a new generation of amateur cyclists?
FC: I do not necessarily think they are mutually exclusive. The pinnacle-end of the sport, high-performance racing, is aspirational to many individuals and will continue to be in the future. I think being able to provide the opportunity to make a career in cycling and being in a position to inspire communities and future generations about the sport is an amazing prospect. But we won’t succeed in achieving our purpose as a brand if we only focus on racing.

We also have to work on more accessible and more approachable activities which help people discover the values and joys of being on a bike, and how being on a bike is a remedy to the world’s biggest societal challenges and threats – whether it’s environmental benefits with more people commuting on a bike, whether it’s mental health and personal wellbeing which comes when you spend time with yourself and challenge yourself as an individual, or the social friendship and comradery which comes with being on a bike. I think professional and amateur cycling should co-exist and they have their distinctive role to play.

An image from the Rapha Spring/Summer ’23 Collection campaign

LUX: Can you tell us about the main ways you incorporate sustainability into your company?
FC: Sustainability is central. We’ve always looked at it as a duty we have to do the right thing. We launched a repair program which provides the opportunity for any garment which may be damaged to be repaired. We used to do that in-house. We have started to involve partners to help us do it. Over time, we started to pay more attention to how we make our products and the impact that we have. For the last couple of years we’ve been offsetting all the carbon emissions that are generated from the shipments to customers. We’ve offset 100% of our carbon emissions coming from our logistics impact that we have on the planet.

We have been driving a lot of work to convert 100% of our product range into sustainable materials, whether it’s recycled fabrics, recycled fibres, or recyclable or compostable fibres. We’ve covered about 70% of the range now. We are removing all PFC materials from our weather protection products. We’re taking a much more abrasive stance on excess materials we produce. We are now repurposing excess material through excess collections in the Spring of this year. This is now becoming part of our ongoing initiatives. Although it only accounts for 2% of our total volume, it is still a meaningful initiative.

The Los Angeles Rapha Clubhouse

We are about to publish our second impact report in September, which will show our impact over the last twelve months and how much we’ve progressed. We are ahead of track on some key commitments, and some others we have found more challenging than we hoped, or we realise we needed to communicate in a very different way, or we realised that people, planet and communities take framework for broader impact. It takes time, and we’ve embedded that as a culture and as a priority. We have a small sustainability team, but that team is there to inspire a vision. If it’s not embedded in business, we will never make the progress we want to make.

Read more: Pierre Barreau on the future of AI in the music industry 

LUX: Do you think cities are adapting to cyclists, or is there more to be done?
FC: We’ve seen cities adapting more and more to cyclists. I think the pandemic has been an amazing catalyst for more infrastructure to be provided, but we are far from being in the right place.

We can look at places like Denmark and Holland, where urban commuting is ingrained in the local culture, and see cities which are built around cycling. There is lots of fantastic work being done by cities and local organisations. I’ve seen places like Paris, for instance, make amazing progress over the last three years and transforming the way people can ride through the city in a much safer way.

The RCC is now a global community with over 10,000 members

It’s a constant push and pull. Safety on a bike is still one of the top three barriers from people riding their bikes. More and more people have decided to take their bikes off the road and ride off the beaten track or in front of the TV, because you’re in a safer environment. This shows we are still far from where we need to be to make riding safe, whether it’s inside or outside the city.

LUX: How do cyclist communities created by the Rapha clubhouses influence the outlook of the company?
FC: We’ve always been committed to real-life experiences from the earliest days of Rapha. We call our physical Rapha stores clubhouses, because they are not just stores, they are a home away from home for our customers. In 2014, we launched Rapha Cycling Club which is part of a membership program which gives people access to unique benefits and unique experiences. That community is now made up of 20,000 individuals across the world spread across 25 different chapters. Actively investing in building communities on the ground is a direct consequence of us trying to inspire the world to take up the bike. The RCC and our clubhouses are there to inspire people to go on a ride every day of the week, you will have a collection of rides you can join as a member.

The cycling communities influence the company on a few levels. It pushes the customer-centrality of the brand because of the unique customer-directed nature of the brand we have got to have the customer-mentality and direct relationship. It depends on feedback from customers and RCC members to have that customer-first mentality. As CEO of the company, I can go on a ride tomorrow morning in a London clubhouse and get real-time feedback from our customers on how they feel and what they think.

Find out more: www.rapha.cc

Philanthropist and businessman Etienne d’Arenberg

Etienne d’Arenberg hails from one of Europe’s oldest families and is treasurer of the Arenberg Foundation, whose mission is the promotion of the understanding of European history and culture. He is a partner of family-owned Swiss private bank Mirabaud. He is also President of the Menuhin Competition Trust, and Trustee of several Swiss and UK charities. He speaks to LUX about European values, and the evolving perspectives and expectations of the next generation

LUX: Has the nature of philanthropy changed in the last two decades?
Etienne d’Arenberg: Both from my private banking experience at Mirabaud as well as from various circle of donors I belong to, I feel that there is a clear evolution in philanthropic practices. Firstly, there is an increasing involvement in philanthropic areas outside the traditional non-profit sector with growing interest from both governments and companies to partner with individual donors on specific issues. Secondly, and this is probably the consequence of the first point, there is an increasing focus on systemic change and transformative grant-making approaches that achieve greater leverage. Lastly, and this can become challenging for smaller institutions, there is a growing expectation for impact measurement and focus on KPIs.

Another trend that I see emerging in large donors’ circles – often business-owning families – is the need to align business and family platforms. The time where your company was polluting the rivers while at the same time your family foundation was giving to the WWF is over. There is a search for coherence between the different activities with a growing alignment between the business, the investment vehicle(s) and the philanthropic foundation. Interestingly, private banks in Geneva such as Mirabaud have been at the forefront of this trend with their founding families being very active in local communities, while at the same time promoting a company’s approach to addressing the most pressing social and environmental issues.

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LUX: Tell us more about your last point – are people being judged by different criteria?
Etienne d’Arenberg: We are faced with issues of huge magnitude, both on the societal and environmental front and this is especially true in times of COVID-19. If you combine this with growing access to information, I do feel that there is a real demand from the public for more sustainable business practices and generally speaking pressure for accountability. I see this pressure mounting, especially from a new generation of customers and employees.

If you run a company that is active in socially or environmentally damaging activities, the issue is that you will not be able to shift your business focus overnight. Our role as investors – and this is what we do at Mirabaud – is to accept companies that may not yet be there, but which are able to demonstrate a forward-looking vision including a clear strategy to transition to clean, circular and inclusive business models. For a family-owned or family-controlled company such as Mirabaud, this is also a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with purpose and long-holding family values.

The Arenberg Foundation organises concerts in the remote village of Lauenen, in central Switzerland.

LUX: Is inclusion and bringing people together an important element of philanthropy?
Etienne d’Arenberg: Inclusion is about embracing people irrespective of their difference, whether that’s race, ethnicity gender, sexual orientation or identification, religion or economic circumstances, and providing them with equal opportunities. This is where philanthropy plays an important role as inclusion often starts with access to education, healthcare or basic needs.

But inclusion is also about getting rid of bias, the “us versus them” old way thinking, and embracing the fact that our difference is something positive: this goes far beyond the tropic of philanthropy. I come from quite a traditional background, but I am proud to say that I do not feel threatened by a society that changes. Quite to the contrary and under the impulsion of my daughters, we have been revisiting family values and behaviours, making sure not to pigeon-hole people and being particularly mindful not to impose suffering by raw reflexes of exclusion.

Mirabaud has also committed itself to diversity and inclusion, making sure, for example, that we create an optimal workplace for women. The fact that we were one of the first Geneva private bank to welcome a female managing partner helped us to develop a solid framework for gender equality practices. This has nothing to do with tokenism as it is based on the strong conviction that a forward-looking institution needs different perspectives and experiences.

Read more: Sophie Neuendorf on building a more sustainable art world

LUX: With the demands that are ever growing on the state sector, does the private sector need to step in more to support the cultural and charitable activities that were previously more supported by the state?
Etienne d’Arenberg: I don’t want to be a judge of the private sector being ‘not enough’, because whatever comes is already something and some individual donors are immensely generous. As I was mentioning before, there is an increasing need for approaches that achieve greater leverage and I believe that public-private partnership will play a greater role in addressing the need for systemic change.

The private sector can also act as a catalyst for change, raising awareness on specific issue and campaigning direct governmental support. I have been following the work of a UK charity which focuses on children food poverty: this is a very good example of an initially privately funded charity, who is actively campaigning for legislative change and working in close collaboration with government on food delivery. I am sure that we will see more on this in the future.

The Bol d’Or Mirabaud regatta on Lake Geneva

LUX: Does the next generation of wealth owners have different priorities for philanthropy?
Etienne d’Arenberg: Traditionally, family businesses or wealth owners have been quite active in their communities, and Mirabaud is no exception, both at the bank and at the partners’ level. Ask many Geneva-based NGOs, charities, cultural or sport institutions and they will tell you about its commitment.

I feel that the type of issues Generation Z cares about are a little bit different and I see this with my daughters. Their preoccupations are centred around inclusion, mental health, environment and racial equity. They will tell you bluntly that they are not prepared to work for a company that does not match their ethics or values, even if that means foregoing a number of lucrative jobs. To my view, this is quite representative of a generation that is much open to a new set of issues.

What is also changing is the active role they are ready to take. I think that the generation of philanthropists who will just sign a check is slowly over, and we will see a new generation of individuals who will want to take a much active role, starting earlier in life as volunteers, advocates or activists, and using a wider range of engagement tools.

As I said, Mirabaud has demonstrated a 200-year-old interest in the communities in which it operates and I sense that as a bank we are particularly interested in understanding this new generation, not only because they are our future clients and employees, but also because they are shaping the future we will be operating in, as a company.

Read more: Lamberto Frescobaldi on 1000 years of tradition and wine

LUX: Do Mirabaud’s philanthropic contributions focus on culture and the arts?
Etienne d’Arenberg: First and foremost, concerning contemporary art, in recent years we’ve been sponsors of FIAC in Paris among various other renowned institutions. We’ve also sponsored the Zurich Art weekend, which is, in a way, the pre-Art Basel event, in a more intimate setting. Even if we are an institution that celebrated its 200th birthday in 2019 (so we are 202 years old now) our motto is always “to be prepared for now”. As in, immediately at your service, to sponsor and to be interested in today’s world and that’s why we are interested in contemporary art. We know the value of looking into the past, and taking lessons into the future.

The second thing to remember is that culture is not something which always pertains to art. If you look at the enthusiasm of the public, art is not always the biggest thing, sports, for example, are part of the culture of a nation. We are sponsors of the largest inland regatta competition in the world, the Bol d’Or Mirabaud on Lake Geneva, and it’s a fascinating competition, because the lake has very particular wind conditions that are ever-changing, it is not a one-sided Caribbean type wind that comes constantly from one side and doesn’t change that often. Here again our motto “prepared for now” completely makes sense.

LUX: The concept of Europe is an important one for your family foundation. Why?
Etienne d’Arenberg: When we think about Europe, our family thinks of the continent which includes Switzerland and the United Kingdom, not only the European Union. The concept of Europe is indeed very important for our family, as it includes a set of value that are dear to our heart: human dignity, rule of law, equality and democracy to name a few. This sounds wonderful and noble, but the truth is that it is quite vague in practice.

What we have been trying to do with our family foundation is to revisit these values in the light of today’s challenges and explore new ways to shape our common future.

I am personally convinced that Europe has a key role to play in shaping the post-COVID recovery, and building a new social contract based on these long-lasting European values and at a very modest level, we are trying to be part of this conversation.

Etienne d’Arenberg is limited partner of family-owned Swiss private bank Mirabaud and is Head Wealth Management United Kingdom.

Find out more: arenbergfoundation.eu, mirabaud.com

Olympian skier Alexis Pinturault, who was involved in designing the red, white and blue RM 67-02 Automatic

Irene Bellucci meets World-Cup-winning Alpine ski racer Alexis Pinturault and super-G skiing and giant slalom snowboarding Olympic gold medallist Ester Ledecká on the powdery slopes of Courchevel to talk winning, the thrill of the race and their roles as ambassadors for luxury watchmaker Richard Mille

Alexis Pinturault is France’s most successful skier, notching up 23 World Cup victories and representing his country in five World Championships and two Winter Olympics, most recently winning four bronze medals in the giant slalom event.

LUX: What does skiing mean to you?
Alexis Pinturault: Doing any kind of sport is a kind of mindset. It brings you education, respect, confidence. It is a way of life.

LUX: Are you very competitive?
Alexis Pinturault: Yes, maybe too much, but I am getting better. It’s important to know your competitors, but on the day of the race, there is just you. I try to be more accepting about losing, but I used to find it very difficult. Alpine skiers are a bit crazy.

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RM 67-02 Automatic

LUX: Describe a typical training day for you.
Alexis Pinturault: I wake up at 6 or 6.30, warm up and have breakfast. I’ll be on the slopes by 7.30 for an inspection at 8.30, and take my first run at 9.30. Depending on the results, we might go ahead with a second inspection and run. We’ll then have a break, review progress and then I might have some physiotherapy. On the rare day that I’m not training, I’m not very patient. My wife and I are very active: we go hiking, diving, walking. Never just chilling on the beach.

LUX: What do you feel just before the start of the race?
Alexis Pinturault: I’m very focused on the moment. When I’m skiing, it’s all about instinct and I don’t have time to think about what I’m doing. If you start to think about it, the race is already over. When we are racing, we are like animals.

LUX: What do you consider “success”?
Alexis Pinturault: Success is an achievement. For a sportsman, it’s reaching a goal, like the Olympics. But even once you’ve achieved your goal, there are always other goals to reach for.

LUX: What are your other goals for the next five years?
Alexis Pinturault: I want to win the World Championship here in Courchevel in 2023, and then maybe the next Olympics in 2026.

LUX: Do you feel pressure to set an example for the next generation of skiers?
Alexis Pinturault: You do feel pressure when you spot all the kids and all the people cheering for you at the finish line, waiting for autographs and selfies and wanting to spend time with you. But it’s amazing to come back to Courchevel and ski with the kids from the ski club.

Read more: Inside Andermatt’s newly opened concert hall

LUX: Are you a watch enthusiast?
Alexis Pinturault: Yes. I got my first watch from my grandfather, and another one after I got married.

LUX: Do you wear your Richard Mille watch during competitions?
Alexis Pinturault: Yes, it’s lightweight and I wear it under gloves and a protector for slalom and giant slalom races. I was involved in designing some of the details and suggested white for snow, and red and blue to represent the French flag.

LUX: Is there a connection between the brand and your sport?
Alexis Pinturault: Yes – we are both focused on pushing the limits, always looking and trying new ideas.

Olympian skier Ester Ledecká

At the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang, South Korea, Ester Ledecká triumphed in both the super-G Alpine skiing event and the giant slalom in snowboarding. This feat made the Czech athlete the first person to win gold in two separate disciplines at the same Winter Olympics.

LUX: Can you describe the feeling of skiing downhill?
Ester Ledecká: Pure freedom. When I ride down the hills, I can feel little fireworks inside my heart. The feeling is even stronger when I’m competing! Everyone asks me, “How are you going to celebrate after the race?” and I always reply that I have already celebrated. Nothing better can happen after the run because I’ve already experienced the best feeling in the world.

LUX: Why do you do both snowboarding and skiing?
Ester Ledecká: For me, this is an easy question to answer. It’s because I love both of them too much! I don’t want to be bored by either of them.

LUX: How do you win races across both disciplines?
Ester Ledecká: There is no tutorial for it. I worked hard, I started when I was two years old and I have trained every day for 22 years. It takes a lot of training, and you need to learn how to lose – billions of times – before you reach some kind of result.

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LUX: What is your relationship with time?
Ester Ledecká: Actually, I am in a race with time. I don’t race with other girls, I race with time. It doesn’t matter if it’s snowboarding or skiing. It doesn’t matter who’s next to me. I just need to be fast.

RM67-02

LUX: Does your Richard Mille watch help?
Ester Ledecká: Richard Mille gave me my first watch. The design of these watches is all about precision and details. There are no excuses; everything needs to be perfect. I love the way you can see all the details inside the dial; other brands hide the workings of the watch, but Richard Mille’s are perfect. When I met the Richard Mille ‘family’, I fell in love with the whole team. This watch is much more than a pretty thing I have on my wrist, it’s a reminder that I’m part of something very big. The company supports me not as a sponsor, but like a real family. They are with me if I win or if I lose. When I’m wearing my watch, I remember that someone’s got my back.

LUX: Do you wear the watch during the competitions?
Ester Ledecká: Sadly no, because it doesn’t fit under my suit and protection for downhill and super-G. But I can wear it to play other sports because it’s so light.

LUX: Who else supports your career?
Ester Ledecká: I am lucky to come from a very supportive family. My grandpa [Jan Klapáč] was a world champion in ice hockey and he taught me how to love sport and how to lose. He showed me how beautiful and fun a professional sport can be. To become a professional athlete you need a lot of passion. You have to sacrifice a lot, including your personal life. It’s a tough job, but he taught me how to love even the hardest parts of my job. My mum also comes with me everywhere, she’s never missed a race – apart from one on the other side of the ocean because she is afraid to fly.

LUX: What are your future goals now that you’ve already won so much?
Ester Ledecká: I haven’t won anything at all, I am just at the beginning. There is a long way in front of me. Even in snowboarding, there is still something to improve. I still have a lot of races to win in skiing. That will take a long time, but step by step…

LUX: Can you describe Alexis?
Ester Ledecká: Fast. Cute. And one of my skiing idols.

Thank you to the Hôtel Annapurna in Courchevel, owned by Pinturault’s family, for hosting LUX. For more information visit: annapurna-courchevel.com

This article was originally published in the Autumn 19 Issue.

Richard Mille chooses sports personalities as brand ambassadors, including Ukrainian high jumper Yuliya Levchenko

Richard Mille is the name adorning some of the world’s most expensive – and outrageous – timepieces. But the eponymous founder is a thoughtful, passionate creative who dreamed of creating a racing car company as much as a watch brand. Darius Sanai meets him

Richard Mille watching Formula One

Richard Mille has grown his eponymous brand from start-up to occupying a dominant space at the top end of the luxury watch echelon, in less than 20 years. He has done so, not by imitating others, but by creating a completely new script for high-end watches: dramatically beautiful shapes, mind-bending mechanicals and super-high tech, tough materials, meaning his striking timepieces are significant in size but lightweight to wear. Mille could be seen as inventing a new market for the young-at-heart collector who wants to break from tradition. They are sculptures as much as they are timepieces.

Follow LUX on Instagram: the.official.lux.magazine

But he is also a marketing genius, sponsoring (and sticking with) stars such as Rafael Nadal, who repaid Mille’s unswerving faith in him by winning the French Open for the 11th time this year, and attaching his name to the sexiest sports, and the sexiest spots, in the world. Whether you’re attending Formula One in Singapore, Formula E in Hong Kong, the Concours d’Elegance in Chantilly, or just hopping by helicopter from Monaco to the private jet terminal at Nice Côte d’Azur airport, you will see the brand (and its customers).

Polo champion and Richard Mille brand ambassador Pablo MacDonough

Richard Mille’s most notable recent partnership is with hyper-car makers McLaren, and like the rest of the brand, the motoring DNA wasn’t dreamed up by a marketing agency. Mille is a car fanatic and collector of some of the most exquisite historic classic cars, and it was this subject – the symmetry between watch and car design and ethos – that kicked off our conversation, because there is a symmetry between classic cars and hypermodern watches, as he reveals…

LUX: Many collectors will say that today’s cars are not as beautiful as the cars of the 1950s and 1960s. What is your view on that?
Richard Mille: The car designs of today are certainly driven by efficiency; everyone wants to optimise the aerodynamics, engine power, downforce, etc. In the 1960s the objectives were different, and there was a lot of the designer’s personality involved in the cars. The variety of designs was very interesting, even in terms of the design drawings – back then even racing cars were very different to each other. Nowadays it is very difficult to see the difference between different car brands because they have to be designed with performance efficiency in mind. Even if you are a connoisseur of Formula One, if you take away the different colours, it would be very different to see the difference between a Ferrari and a Mercedes, because everything is driven by computers and aerodynamics.

The McLaren collaboration watch, RM 50-03

Brand ambassador and
Olympic high jumper
Mutaz Essa Barshim

LUX: Does that apply also to engines? Engines used to be mechanical things of beauty, and that applied to the sounds they made, also. Nowadays, I’m not sure many people could tell the difference between the V8 twin turbo engines in an Aston Martin, a Ferrari, a Mercedes-AMG or a BMW M5.
Richard Mille: Most probably, because now you have to be careful about noise, emissions and other aspects. And when you open the bonnet you don’t see the revelation of the engine. With an Aston Martin or a Lamborghini Huracán you have a magnificent car, but you open the bonnet and you just see a lot of plastic. You then go to a classic car concours and see all those cars; the people are totally crazy because each one is more beautiful than the other – so many different shapes, colours, engines, noises. It is fantastic to see 500 cars in one place that are so different from each other.

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LUX: Do you think the younger generation now think of cars just as transportation – that they’d be as happy to use a shared car club or an autonomous car?
Richard Mille: I think in the genes there is still an appeal for cars. If you speak about younger children, today they are in different virtual universes, but still the appeal of a nice car is there. You see them looking around racing cars and dreaming. So I think it still brings excitement.

Above: scenes from the Chantilly Arts & Elegance Richard Mille event 2017

The RM 70-01 watch

LUX: Does the same question apply with mechanical watches? People don’t need the watches you make, but they want them because they are desirable objects?
Richard Mille: Yes, you can really say that there is a parallel there because so many people are still buying watches in different colours that they don’t really use. It’s the same when you buy a sports car that can go at 300km/h; that is not any use because of speed limits, unless you go on a track. But the beautiful object is still a source of desire, which is nice because I can see myself that we cannot cope with the demand, the demand is getting totally crazy. We increase the production every year. Last year we did 4,000 pieces, this year we will do 4,600 pieces, so it is a constant growth. But I cannot cope with the demand at all, the demand is exploding. I have seen the same with my friends. The McLaren Senna costs £750,000 and they were all sold without anyone even seeing a picture of one. My friends, they want it but they can’t get it. It’s the same story with the McLaren P1: 500 units all sold before even before production started. Studies are showing that young people aged 18-30 still dream about luxury watches, which is funny because I expected the opposite.

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LUX: When you are creating the watches, how much does the design inform the mechanicals and how does that conversation happen? Because the distinctiveness of your watches is in the design but they are also very mechanically advanced.
Richard Mille: It was one of my concerns when I started,to give as much importance to the design as to the mechanical aspect.

Heptathlete and brand ambassador Nafissatou Thiam

LUX: It is a crowded market, and you have created a brand that has gone from zero to hero in 20 years. How did you do that and why did you succeed when so many others had tried but failed, or remained much smaller?
Richard Mille: The first reason was a kind of rupture with a world of watches. People in this world of high-end watches were just duplicating the same watches that were in existence at the beginning of the 20th century. So I said, we have to do a contemporary watch, a watch that is very different from what is out there, and to create it at any cost, without any compromise. So today it is a paradox where we have a young brand that has got a lot of respect from the market, from the competition and also from the public. We have a lot of respect because we do not copy anybody and we are not afraid to take risks. Many other brands are inspired by the high-end watch business, but sometimes the problem with the watch business is that it is boring – the message is always the same. Our message is that we respect tradition, but we are modern, we are a contemporary watch, we are extremely technical but we do watches to live with, to wear daily.

Singer Pharrell Williams and sprinter Yohan Blake wearing Richard Mille watches at the Little Big Mans race

Mille-sponsored Alexander
Zverev wins the 2018
Madrid Open

LUX: Have you ever been tempted to start or revive a luxury car brand?
Richard Mille: That has been my dream for many years, yes. I would have loved that. It is such a different universe. At the same time, we only have 24 hours in a day; I think it would take two lives to do a car company as well. So I will stick to the watches and collect cars.

LUX: Do you think it’s a shame that France no longer has a supercar brand, like it did many years ago?
Richard Mille: It is, because we have a very interesting past as you see with car collectors. But after the Second World War, the French government just decided to do popular cars.

LUX: LUX speaks to the high end of the luxury market. Is luxury stratifying?
Richard Mille:  Yes, I can see that everyday. There are many luxury brands that are turning into volume brands, and sometimes it is very high volume. Also people are more educated and sophisticated and know the numbers; they know that many brands are volume makers and they are looking for more exclusive things, things that will make them different. Twenty years ago people did not know the difference between Hermès and Louis Vuitton. Today they know the difference between those brands; they know who is doing what. The world of luxury, which was quite over generous, has today totally exploded between all the different segments.

Discover Richard Mille’s collections: richardmille.com