“Look who’s on the drums,” Mr. Kern said, smiling.

Sure enough, there was IWC’s chief executive banging away in the background. As it turns out, Mr. Kern has spent the past few years learning how to play the instrument, drawing key lessons about business and life in the process.

“The band follows the drummer,” he said. “You can make any mistake, but whatever you do, you have to keep the rhythm.”

IWC’s chief executive on:

Managing in a crisis

“This is part of our life. You will have political crisis, you will have financial crisis, you will have social crisis, you will have military crisis — but that’s part of our world. What do you want me to do — jump out of a window? The worst thing for your staff is when they have a boss who is insecure and they feel it. You need in a crisis to lead the way and to have solutions and answers to problems.”

IWC and celebrity partnerships

“It’s all personal relationships. We never had a list. First of all, we were too small; we couldn’t afford it. And we never wanted to use celebrities, be it sports stars or actors, in advertising. It was always about product.”

Branding

“When you buy a product, you don’t just buy the product. You buy the brand; you buy the image of the brand. You need to feel comfortable with its style, with its ambassadors. Everything we do — every show, every catalog — is an element that enriches the brand and creates an image of the brand. At IWC, we do very different types of things and it works. Don’t ask me how. There’s lots of intuition.”

Producing films

“The reality is today we are renting platforms, meaning we have product placements in a movie or we do red carpets or we are part of a movie one way or another, but we don’t own anything. Now imagine if Tiffany owned “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” — having the I.P. — what they could do in terms of limited series, etc. Or if TAG Heuer owned “Le Mans” with Steve McQueen — really owning it, not renting it. We spend so much money at festivals — Tribeca, Dubai, Zurich, London. We have so many contracts with actors. We do so many product placements. But we don’t own anything. So one day, there could be a closer relationship.”