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The French don’t have an expression for a “company man” but, if they did, it would almost certainly describe Laurent Dordet.

The 48-year-old Frenchman has spent nearly his entire career at Hermès, in charge of several métiers, or professions, including textiles, and leather goods and saddlery, the products that initially made the name of that luxury goods purveyor.

Some may ask: Why stay? Mr. Dordet said that, given the diverse experience and the company’s focus on first-class craftsmanship, the question is more: Why leave?

“As an employee, Hermès offers you a fantastic variety of know-how and possibility,” he said. “Every four or five years, I have to reset my mind totally.”

Most recently, in 2015, Mr. Dordet reapplied his considerable experience to the singular world of Swiss watchmaking when he was appointed chief executive of La Montre Hermès, the company’s watchmaking division.

Arriving at the division’s headquarters in Brügg, Switzerland, he said, he thought he was entering a world focused more on technology and industry than on craftsmanship. The biggest surprise, he said, was that watchmaking is, in fact, “a fascinating combination of both.”

Watches make up a relatively small proportion of the group’s overall business. In 2016, the division contributed just 3 percent of the brand’s almost 5.2 billion euro ($5.55 billion) revenue.

But with Mr. Dordet at the helm, La Montre Hermès has been realizing its significant ambitions for growth.

This week, at his second Baselworld watch fair, Mr. Dordet is introducing the latest in the ultrathin Slim d’Hermès line, l’Heure Impatiente, a watch that riffs on anticipation.

The company also will unveil a new campaign, “Time, a Hermès Object,” celebrating its idiosyncratic definition of time itself.

In place of the traditional watchmakers’ marketing focus on precision and performance, “at Hermès we talk about a different time: one about lightness, about fantasy, about freedom of tone, about freshness,” he said, adding that communicating this difference was essential to the company’s growth. “We are not in this industry to express ourselves in the same way as our competitors. We are here to bring something completely different.”

Like the initial Slim d’Hermès model, Le Temps Suspendu, an award-winning design introduced in 2011, l’Heure Impatiente reflects the Hermès definition of time, Mr. Dordet said. It incorporates a new complication that allows the wearer to set a timer as much as 12 hours before an event. A mechanical hourglass at 6 o’clock on the dial counts down the final hour, and the moment itself is marked by a chime audible only to the wearer. It will sell for $39,900.

Based on the French expression “Le meilleur moment de l’amour, c’est quand on monte l’escalier,” by Georges Clemenceau, which means “The moment of anticipation of meeting one’s lover is the sweetest moment of all,” the end of the countdown is “a crescendo that brings the wearer emotion and pleasure,” Mr. Dordet said.

The watch was conceived in a somewhat less poetic context. In 2012, Philippe Delhotal, La Montre Hermès’s artistic director, and Jean-Marc Wiederrecht of the independent watchmaking company Agenhor, a frequent Hermès collaborator, were on a Baselworld escalator when they hurriedly sketched out the idea.

It took five years to develop. A particular challenge was finding the right chime: one that sounded just right, lasted two seconds, and that could be incorporated into the Vaucher movement (Hermès acquired a stake in the movement manufacturer in 2006).

“We developed 28 or 29 trials of different sounds before we found the right one,” Mr. Dordet said.

That’s where Mr. Wiederrecht’s skills came to the fore. As a movement and module maker for the likes of Van Cleef and Arpels and Fabergé, he specializes in realizing elegant solutions to complex problems. In the end, Hermès increased the original Slim case to 40.5 millimeters, from 39.5 millimeters, and used a slightly different in-house movement, the H1912, to accommodate the sound works.

Despite the trials of development, Mr. Dordet noted with satisfaction, “It is absolutely fascinating how close the final result is to the original design sketched on the escalator.”

Back in 2015, his first decision as the division’s chief executive was to delay the commercial release of the Slim, introduced at Baselworld in March of that year, until all the models were ready in the fall.

It was a gamble that paid off. After less than two years, the Slim line accounts for 10 percent of Hermès’s entire watch business. In 2015, the Slim d’Hermès QP was awarded the title of best calendar watch of the year at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève, and last year the division introduced the Slim d’Hermès Email Grand Feu, a model incorporating the artistry of grand feu (or “great fire”) enameling.

“Progressively we are increasing the excitement in the collection,” Mr. Dordet said.

So why has this line, Hermès’s first to be fully integrated in-house following its acquisition of case and dial companies in 2012 and 2013, been so successful? In Mr. Dordet’s opinion, the Slim drew notice because it was unlike anything else on the market.

“It was innovative, contemporary, elegant and discreet,” he said of the style, which highlights a custom-created stencil-style dial font from the Parisian graphic designer Philippe Apeloig. “This meant it got noticed, and is now perceived as a new classic.”

The Slim has also brought Hermès a new customer group: men. Although feminine watches remain Hermès’s core business, Mr. Dordet said sales for the Slim are split roughly equally between men and women. And such results are particularly satisfying as, even after men examine other watches on the market, “they still come frequently in the end to buy ours,’’ he said.

The Slim’s success, and the reintroduction of the Cape Cod line on its 25th anniversary last fall, have given Mr. Dordet confidence about future growth despite the watch industry’s sales downturn.

The brand’s 2016 global sales figures for watches were down 3 percent year over year, but “the satisfactory point is that performance was stable in our own stores, which was no easy task given the conditions,” he said.

Mr. Dordet had only had an amateur’s knowledge of watches when he arrived at La Montre Hermès, but he did have intimate knowledge of Hermès’s store network. “The reality is that now, more than 80 percent of our watch sales are done internally,” he said, meaning in the company’s boutiques.

That focus is in line with Hermès’s broader strategy of developing its 330 boutiques around the world, decreasing its number of external retailers in order to maintain a sense of exclusivity for products like the Birkin handbag.

When it comes to selling watches, however, developing good relationships with selected third-party retailers still is important. “There are different types of customer: The people who buy an Hermès watch within one of our stores are first of all people who love the brand, and they want to buy many items from us,” Mr. Dordet said. “For watches and perfumes, though, there are many people who love our brand, but they prefer to shop in a multibrand environment where they can benefit from an external recommendation.”

Yet wherever a customer chooses to buy a Hermès watch, he said, they are guaranteed a luxury product that combines expertise and the house’s playful spirit. “When you master the know-how of something,” he said, “you take things seriously but not too seriously.”