CEO Club Briefing

Global Luxury Brand

Excerpt from remarks to the Boston College Chief Executives Club  

October 3, 2019

TAKEAWAY: Global Luxury Brand

BOGLIOLO: 
The company is a truly global luxury brand, with a business that is 60 percent outside of the United States. Of course, the US keeps being our first market in the world. But the second one is greater China, and the third one is Japan. About 50 percent of our sales actually come from Asia. We have 325 stores around the world. And one of the many things that make Tiffany truly special is the fact that we are truly integrated as a company. So it’s an amazing brand. But behind that brand, there is an expertise that starts all the way upstream in the supply chain. 

Take, for example, diamonds. We are the only luxury jeweler that we buy diamonds as rough, directly from mines, in order to make sure the origin and the traceability of those diamonds. We have about 1,500 people—craftsmen—in our company that cut and polish diamonds, other thousands of people that make the jewelry in five major workshops in the US—one, by the way, not too far away in Rhode Island. And then we are integrated all the way, of course, through design and retail, so you can buy a Tiffany product only at the Tiffany store. 

We have about 325 stores around the world, 100 of them in the US. And there are no sales at Tiffany. (laughter) There are no discounts at Tiffany. There are no outlets at Tiffany. And this makes the brand that beautiful, shining brand that I think this country should be really proud of.