Riding high

Every morning, Kristian Petersson saddles up and goes riding at his luxurious Desert Palms home. But this avid polo player and managing director of Kinnarps Middle East office suppliers doesn't enjoy this idyllic life because he's lucky. He tells Lorraine Chandler that success only comes by taking risks.

I nearly get lost trying to find Kristian Petersson's house. It's in the middle of the desert, somewhere along the Hatta-Oman road. I start worrying if I'll arrive at the border.

But then I come across an oasis of greenery, fronted by a discreet security gate. I'm at Desert Palms, a luxurious and incredibly lush polo club that is home to some of Dubai's wealthiest residents, among them Petersson, the managing director of Kinnarps Middle East.

Petersson's home fits perfectly into its surroundings, with every piece of furniture whispering sophistication, taste and the irrelevance of cost.

His every graceful movement announces this is the life he was born for, while his glamorous Argentinian wife, Valerie, appears to savour this lavish existence as much as he does.

And why shouldn't they?

Petersson, 44, has chosen his home and work well. He admits that he doesn't have to oversee the day-to-day running of Kinnarps Middle East and mainly works from home.

When you look out of the window at the tropical scenery, you can see the attraction. In this luxuriant setting he can play polo daily, only a few minutes walk from his front door. His five horses are conveniently stabled nearby, meaning he never has to wait for anything.

I'm tempted to envy his Gatsby-like existence, which seems a far cry from the daily routine of shuttling up and down Shaikh Zayed Road. He admits he likes the good things in life, yet, despite appearances, he has worked very hard to get where he is today.

Petersson is a risk taker and some of his most risky endeavours have been the most successful, including introducing Kinnarps, one of Europe's top office furniture brands, to the Middle East.

Born in Gothenburg, Sweden, Petersson was brought up in a middle class family with his father, Bo, working in the shipping industry his whole life. When his father moved to Jeddah in 1978, the young Petersson worked during the summer on ship repairs.

After getting a diploma in mechanical engineering, at 20 he joined his father and started work as a service engineer for Tetrapak in Saudi Arabia. After three years he found himself doing the work of far more experienced technicians and travelling throughout the Middle East.

Yet he became bored and found few challenges in his work and so returned to Sweden to study. After a short spell of military service, Petersson started a four-year degree in financial control at the Business School of Gothenburg.

However, it seems he had made a bigger name for himself in Saudi Arabia than he realised. Only two months into his studies, he got a call out of the blue from Pakman, a Swedish company that wanted to open a new factory in Dubai.

Pakman had got Petersson's name from the Swedish Trading Commission in Saudi Arabia. The company made him an offer and in 1987, Petersson, then 25, abandoned his studies and came to Dubai to work as general manager.

"I knew I could always study later and I couldn't resist the challenge. I've always been a risk taker," he explains in his straightforward Scandinavian way.

After a few years of working his fingers to the bone, he returned to Sweden to complete his degree, while simultaneously setting up and running his own garment trading company, optimistically named Petersson and Sons Merchandising. (At the time, he only had one son.)

He enjoyed the challenges, but after graduating, he decided the business couldn't give him the lifestyle he craved and started looking around for other options.
During a trip to Dubai in 1992, he noticed an advertised tender for office furniture for Etisalat.

Despite having no experience in the field, he got a friend at home to contact Kinnarps, Sweden's leading office furniture firm, to help him put in a bid. While the tender was unsuccessful, he started to realise this was something he could build on.

That autumn, he sold his first order to Mohammad Al Abbar, who had just taken over as head of the Department of Economic Development.

Despite having only one sale behind him and no guarantee of any future income, Petersson was sure he could make a go of it.

That year, he moved his wife and two children from Sweden to a two-bedroom apartment in Karama and opened Kinnarps's first Middle East office in the Al Jadaf shipyard.

It seems being a risk taker pays off. Kinnarps now has five branches around the region, developing offices for corporate players such as Microsoft, Shell and Sony Ericsson.

An avid polo player, Petersson set up the Kinnarps Cup in 1999. Today one of the most glamorous fixtures on Dubai's sporting calendar, the event is attended by more than 1,000 of Dubai's movers and shakers.

I
I've been very independent even during my childhood, when I was the one to decide which sports and school subjects I would (take).

I left my friends partying at home when I went to Jeddah, aged 20. I was the youngest on the team at (Tetrapak) and it was hard for me to adjust (to the new conditions) but I saw it as a challenge.

I was really thrown in at the deep end, responsible for setting up factories for juice and milk packing, but I wanted things to work. I took on a lot of responsibility, which is what I usually do.

I like to be in control.

It's something that's in my nature, and I like to organise things. Luckily, my wife and
I are both like that.

I've always wanted the good life and that's why I decided to study financial control. If you need to know how to organise yourself in the company, you also need to know the ins and outs of where the money goes.

I've never been afraid to take up new challenges, like when I set up a garment trading company. It was fun and challenging and I used to travel as far afield as Taiwan, Hong Kong, India and Dubai buying fabrics.

When I finished studying, I carried on with the garments (business), but I found it was very seasonal. I had tried to expand into Germany but it was tough.

I decided I could either go back to a corporation and start climbing the ladder, or I could swing it myself. I decided to give it a shot working for myself.

I never tried polo in Sweden; instead, I played soccer, ice hockey and handball. But the first time that I got on to a horse I knew that's what I wanted to do.

If I'd discovered horses earlier in my life, I might have gone into showjumping.

I see polo as a sport - albeit a costly one - and it's sad when people use it as a vehicle to exclude other people, when it becomes something snobbish.

I can be too generous at times (according to my wife) but I always try to do the right thing in life. I'm not very goal-oriented. My life is a great ride and I'm enjoying it.

My only ambition is to maximise the opportunities that come my way.
 
Me
Me and polo:
I fell in love with horses about 10 years ago, courtesy of my company's sponsor, Ali Albawardi, who's a huge patron of polo in the UK and brought polo to the Middle East.

I moved to Desert Palms in 1998 and I feel really privileged to live here. I can get up at the crack of dawn and go riding.

I got into polo (at the same time I got into) horse riding. The early days of polo in Dubai were very relaxed and not as competitive as nowadays. We didn't have polo in Sweden, so it was something very new to me.

In 2001, I started playing in tournaments around the world. I've played in Argentina, France, Thailand, France, the US, India and London.

Of course, the tournaments improve your game a lot, but it's the fun and friendship of polo that I love.

In Thailand, I played with two of the world's best polo players ? Adolfo Cambiaso and Lalo Castagnolo. It was a good laugh, but also scary because Lalo shouts at you the whole time.

I was only an amateur so I looked like a fool beside them. Polo gives so much back to those who play, in terms of sportsmanship and teamwork.

Me and the furniture business:
While I was running my garment business, I was in Dubai and I saw an Etisalat tender for office furniture.

I started thinking which companies could do that, and I thought of Kinnarps.

I called my old friend Ola (Corneliusson) and asked him to help me. He phoned them and they said they were too busy to help us, but he can be very persuasive on the phone so he managed to put together an order.

We didn't get the contract and years later I realised that we were not offering the sort of furniture they wanted, but it really got me thinking.

In autumn 1992 I decided to give it a shot. Whenever I visited Dubai for work, I tried out my furniture business idea.

Mohammad Al Abbar had just taken over (as director general) at the Department of Economic Development and he was accommodating enough to let me make an offer for his initial office. He accepted (the offer) and we did a deal.

I immediately said to my then wife Lidija, "Let's go and try it," so she came out (to Dubai that year) with our two sons Kristoffer and Viktor (now 18 and 16). Shortly after we had our third son Oskar (now 13).

Despite having a wife and family, I wasn't worried about the risk I was taking. I believe in living by increasing your income rather than by controlling your costs. I wanted to work towards a good life and it was easy to go for it.

I contacted Kinnarps and said, "I'll start selling your products. Do you have any objections?" The work was, and continues to be, all project-based and our relationship was built on mutual trust.

I didn't know anything about the industry, but it's all about attitude.

We opened our first office in the Al Jadaf shipyard with just a couple of employees. I went out measuring sites myself.

I worked with a Swedish designer Ann Rudback, and her services gave us an extra advantage. We tried and tested many different things and we grew organically.

That commitment has sometimes cost us a lot, as some people try to abuse good service and we have had to become better at saying ?no' these days, but we still want to go that extra mile.

I've always (been good at) listening to customers. It often wasn't the furniture they were looking for, but someone to deal with all the hassle of planning an office. We now have offices in Dubai, Doha, Cairo, Jeddah and Riyadh and we're opening a branch in Al Khobar by the end of the year.

We have a turnover of $22 million (about Dh80.74 million) every year.

Me and my best friend:
When I was a small child, I was friends for years with a neighbour, Ola, but when he moved out of my neighbourhood we lost touch.

When I was about 17, I looked around at my friends and decided I didn't have much in common with them. They were hanging around with no structure to their life, but I wanted to do something with myself.

At this stage Ola and I got back in touch with each other, and we also established new friends who were into sailing and other similar pursuits.

Ola and I are still very close; he's one of those souls who is always around.

Myself
Emerson once said, "Riding is not a gentle hobby to be picked up and laid down like a game of solitaire. It is a grand passion." Would you agree?
I'd say it's probably more true of polo than just horse riding, which you can simply do on occasions. Playing polo becomes addictive and it costs money. You have to be careful who you invite to play with you!

You're in the business of aesthetic furniture. You live in a stunning area, and you're surrounded by beauty. Is beauty important in your life?
Oh, extremely important. I thrive on being in beautiful surroundings. I've always been driven by having nice things around me.

In the business I'm in, it's fun to create something aesthetically pleasing for the other party. You also experience beauty on different levels, because not only does your work look great, but you feel great because the client is happy.

What sort of father do you think you are?
I try very hard to be a good father and I think I am, but I'm constantly being put on the right path by my wife!

What's the most important thing in your life?
My family and our health. I don't think I can say I'm really attached to anything else.

Can you see what someone is like when he's playing polo?
Yes, the true personality comes out when you're playing. I let go and become more aggressive, although I also have a view for the whole team. I'm not very egotistical when I'm playing.

Polo involves speed and danger. It's extremely physical and you have to (be in full) control of your horse. It's very challenging. The adrenaline is high and you have to pace yourself.

You can immediately see who's going to be good at the game, because you have to be fearless and not afraid of taking risks. I'm a bit like that whereas my wife, Valerie, prefers to play just for exercise.

They say money makes the world go round. Has it done much for your world?
I think money comes if you do things right, and I also believe that good things come to good people. So if you try to do the right thing, money will come.

But, of course, happiness is more important than money. It's important for me to live a nice lifestyle, but not at the expense of my family or our health.