Jean-Claude Biver was born on 20 September 1949 in Luxembourg City, the son of a shoe-shop owner, Jacques Biver, and Denise Biver, née Zeien, from Burgundy. At ten he moved with his family to Switzerland, went to school in Saint-Prex and Morges, and took a business degree at HEC Lausanne.
After graduating he spent time in the Vallée de Joux, where he met Jacques Piguet of the movement maker Frédéric Piguet, and through him Georges Golay, head of Audemars Piguet, who hired him as sales manager for Europe. A year later he moved to Omega as product manager, then returned to the valley. In 1981 he and Jacques Piguet bought the rights to Blancpain, a dormant name, and rebuilt it on the slogan "Since 1735 there has never been a quartz Blancpain watch. And there never will be." They sold it to SMH (now Swatch Group) in 1992 for CHF 60 million, having paid CHF 22,000.
He joined the Swatch Group board and was charged with reviving Omega, using product placement in the James Bond films and ambassadors such as Cindy Crawford, Michael Schumacher and Pierce Brosnan; Omega's sales almost tripled. He left in 2003 (English Wikipedia also says he ran Blancpain until 2003). In May 2004 he became chief executive, board member and minority shareholder of Hublot, and in April 2005 launched the Big Bang chronograph, which won the 2005 design prize at the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève and tripled orders in a year. LVMH bought Hublot in 2008, and the brand opened its manufacture in Nyon in 2009.
In 2014 LVMH made him head of its watches and jewellery division, overseeing TAG Heuer, Zenith and Hublot, and in December 2014 chief executive of TAG Heuer. He stepped down for health reasons in 2018, after 43 years in the industry. Since 2022 he has chaired JC Biver, a watch manufacture in Givrins founded with his son Pierre. He makes about five tonnes of alpine cheese each summer, which he refuses to sell.