Knud Erik Hansen, the CEO and President of Carl Hansen & Søn, has spent his life living all over the world, from Denmark where he was born and grew up, to stints in Asia and Europe. As grandson of the founder of Carl Hansen, he took over the business and has since made it into one of the largest Danish furniture manufacturers, bringing design classics to homes in Nagasaki and New York. Over the course of two decades, he has generated annual revenues which are now approaching over $145 million. In this exclusive interview, officeinsight speaks to him about his 20 years at the company, and how the brand has evolved
You spent a large part of your career in the shipping industry, was it always your plan to join the family business?My father, who ran Carl Hansen when I was a child, unfortunately, died at a very young age. My mother took over the business, and my brother, since he was the eldest, was in some way earmarked to run it. He didn’t want to expand and he didn’t want to invest in it. Growing up with him, I understood that we were quite different in our thinking and doing, so I thought that I would probably never be able to work with him. I went into something completely different and joined the East Asiatic company—which at the time was the largest shipping company in Scandinavia, and started in South Africa in 1973, left for Singapore in 1977, and then Hong Kong in 1981. I traveled a lot in China as well. After that I moved back to Europe and lived in Hamburg. My mother had died in the meantime, and my brother wanted to retire, so I bought him out. At the time, it was a very small company with a very old factory in the center of Copenhagen, and about only 30 employees.
I asked my wife, who is a medical doctor, what she thought. Should we return to Hong Kong which we loved, or would she prefer to stay in Denmark? She didn’t object to me taking over the family business and said that if anything went wrong, we could always live off her salary, something that was very nice of her to say. After making a business plan, I borrowed an awful lot of money and built a new factory outside Copenhagen, and I started a whole new business exporting. Today there are more than 500 people employed and we have a factory that is about 700,000 square feet.
Carl Hansen espouses a Scandinavian philosophy that marries classic good design with craftsmanship, and making products that are within reach.
When I started, everybody shook their heads and thought I was crazy because I was not from the furniture business and wanted to make furniture in Denmark, which is a very expensive place to work. I didn’t listen to them, but if you want to produce Denmark you must have the highest possible quality, right? We have products that not only look fantastic, but they are also of the highest quality that last for generations and never go out of fashion. The Wishbone chair, for example, is now 73 years old, but very contemporary in feeling.
Our company is 115 years old now, and when my grandfather saw what Hans Wegner had made in the 1940s, he called it garden furniture. It was too avant garde for him, whereas my parents loved what Wegner was doing and believed it was the future and the way forward.
Did you ever meet Hans Wegner when you were growing up?
Oh, yes. Many times, mainly in my childhood. When my mother was running the business, they became very good friends, and he came to see us quite frequently. When I was growing up, Wegner was quiet and a little introverted, but he became a completely different person when he would come to our factory where he did his prototypes, because he loved to work together with the carpenters. I never remembered what he was talking about because I was usually either just laying somewhere on some cardboard boxes or playing in the factory. I enjoyed seeing them working together. One of his passions was to build kites, and he came to our summer house and he always had his hands filled with kites. He would tie them to our jetty, fly them in the air, and sit in a chair for hours watching them. He would explain to us what was going on, and how he had built the kites. That was enough for him and it was very peaceful.
Aside from the estates of iconic Danish designers, which contemporary designers do you work with?For the past decade, we’ve worked with EOOS, the very talented Austrian-based design firm. We’re collaborating on an outdoor furniture collection now. One of the things we try to do is to make sure that all of the pieces from different designers should all work together. They should all match in some way. Some other designers we’ve collaborated with are Thomas Bo Kastholm, Brad Ascalon, and we did an outdoor collection with Bodil Kjær, who just turned 90 last year!
Have you been working with emerging designers?
Rikke Frost, is one example, who I think has a great future. She won a design competition on Danish national television where she designed a bentwood sofa. It is beautiful and we have since put it into production, along with some other pieces.
What’s the relation between contract and residential?
I would say it’s about fifty-fifty. There’s so much crossover now. If you build a hotel today, for example, it’s often branded as a home away from home, so it makes sense to have residential designs crossing over into commercial. And when you use high-quality and beautiful furniture in a luxurious hotel interior, it elevates the guest experience.
Our business in the US is growing very fast, and I like that Americans are finally starting to think about the environment, when for so many decades there’s been this throwaway syndrome in the States.
You also have a new company called Studio CHS that offers bespoke services aimed at the hospitality and contract market. How did that collaboration come about?
It’s a very interesting story. I have two boys who are adopted from Vietnam, and one of them is a production engineer. As part of his schooling, he went to work at a furniture company in Vietnam that was owned by a Dane. About six months later, my wife and I decided to go and visit him, and to cut a long story short, we talked to the owner who was looking to retire, and so we purchased the company. I’ve lived for more than 20 years in Asia, and love it there. Having a meaningful business in Asia is fantastic, and allows us to make different kinds of furniture, such as furniture for the outdoors and especially for the hospitality and contract business.
How are you expanding the business?During COVID, we did a lot of business online. We won’t be showing at the Stockholm Furniture Fair next month, but we will have an event at our Stockholm showroom where we’ll launch some new outdoor products. We will be doing the same in Milan. In fact, we just signed a contract for a new showroom that will be in the center of the city, near San Babila. We’ll be showing new pieces by Ole Wanscher and Rikke Frost.
We’ve been working very closely with a few carpet factories such as Kasthall and Linie Design, where we carry some exclusivity or carry some of their line items. In terms of accessories, we also manufacture smaller accessories like plates or trays which are made from wood offcuts from our production. We also burn the shavings and wood waste to heat the factory and about 450 houses surrounding the factory. Sustainability is an important principle for our company.
