Achievements
Ingvar Kamprad is the founder of IKEA, the largest furniture store in the world. According to Forbes’ list of The World’s Billionaires 2007 he is worth $33 billion.
Career Highlights
Ingvar Kamprad was born in the South of Sweden in 1926 and brought up on a farm called Elmtaryd, near the small village of Agunnaryd. He began ‘making business’ as a very young boy, selling matches from his bicycle. He found that he could buy matches in bulk in Stockholm, and sell them individually at a low price. Ingvar reinvested his profits and expanded to fish, seeds, Christmas tree decorations, and pens and pencils. At age 17, Kamprad's father rewarded him for doing well in school with a sum of money. He used it to establish what has grown into IKEA.
Kamprad founded IKEA in 1943. The name comes from Kamprad's initials and his hometown. Back then it was a catalog company that sold pens, picture frames, wallets, and other bargain goods. When he outgrew his ability to call on his customers individually, he converted to a sort of makeshift mail order operation, hiring the local milk van to make his deliveries.
In 1951, IKEA began selling furniture. The use of local manufacturers let Kamprad keep his costs down. That was a hit, and he decided to discontinue all other product lines and focus on furniture. In 1953, the first IKEA showroom opened, which allowed people to see it, touch it, feel it, and be sure of the product quality before buying. Today IKEA is the largest furniture store in the world which operates in 34 countries and continues to expand into new markets such as Russia, China and Japan.
Kamprad has lived in Switzerland since 1976. He stepped down as CEO in 1999 to comply with Dutch age retirement laws for chief executives, but he is still very active in running the company. He founded Dutch-registered Stichting INGKA Foundation that owns INGKA Holding, the parent company for all IKEA stores. The charitable foundation was reported by The Economist in 2006 to be technically the world's wealthiest charity - with an estimated value of at least $36 billion.
Leadership Experience
Kamprad's vision has always been the driving force of the IKEA's succcess. He believes that the company exists not just to improve people's lives, but to improve the people themselves. The core of the IKEA idea is "democratic design": the trinity of attractive form, inexpensive production, and high function. That idea, combined with what Kamprad calls "the underdog's obsession with always doing the opposite of what others were doing," propelled him along a path of constant innovation and experimentation.
"We are a concept company," used to say Ingvar Kamprad. IKEA's concept is articulated in a document drafted by him in 1976: "a furniture dealer's testament." It outlines a set of nine commandments including perpetuation of the "IKEA spirit" of enthusiasm, thrift, responsibility, humbleness, and simplicity; and "always asking why we are doing this or that . . . refusing to accept a pattern simply because it is well established."
Striving for being as egalitarian as his brand, Kamprad insists on flying economy class, taking the subway to work, driving a 15-year-old Volvo and encouraging IKEA employees to write on both sides of a paper. He also asserts that his home is furnished mostly with IKEA products. Kamprad also has been known to visit IKEA for a cheap meal and to buy Christmas presents in the post-Christmas sales.
Kamprad has been extremely shrewd in creating IKEA's organizational structure. In 1982 he established an intricate system of foundations, trusts, and holding companies to avoid high taxes and ensure that IKEA could not be broken up by family fighting. Rather than face the prospect of watching his life's work destroyed by a succession battle among his three sons, Kamprad split the company in three, restricting his children's ability to change his vision fundamentally. He has repeatedly resisted pressure to take the company public, feeling that it would slow its decision-making processes that have allowed its phenomenal growth.
Background Links
Leading By Design: The Ikea Story, Ingvar Kamprad, Bertil Torekull
Ingvar Kamprad - IKEA Founder and One of the World's Richest Men, About.com
