The Kirk Christiansens

Tre Generationer Stor. Click for a larger image Tre Generationer Stor. Click for a larger image

Today Lego is the sixth largest toy company in the world, and by far the largest toy company in Europe. The company has over 5000 employees worldwide and markets its toys in more than 130 countries.(1) This year it will sell more than two million sets — or four sets every second. It is estimated that more than 400 million children and adults will play with Lego this year and that collectively they will spend more than five billion hours with the toy.

This year Lego will mold 15 billion elements and since the introduction of the modern brick in 1958 the company has sold more than 300 billion bricks — or 52 bricks for every man, women and child on the Earth. The toy is universally praised among educators and child development specialists. It is so highly regarded that it has twice been named the “Toy of the Century.”(2)

For three generations the company has been owned and run by a single family — the Kirk Christiansens of Billund, Denmark.

Ole Kirk Christiansen (or OKC as he was later known within the company) was born 7 April 1891 in Filskov, a small village in the farming and dairy country of central Jutland. As one of 10 children in a poor family he was put to work as soon as possible. He attended school two days a week learning to read and write and spent the rest of the time doing household chores, including tending the family’s livestock. After his confirmation at age 14 he was apprenticed to his older brother, Kristian Bonde Christiansen, who was a carpenter. After learning the basics of the trade he worked in Germany and Norway from 1911 to 1916.

Ole returned to Billund at the age of 25 and with his savings from working abroad he bought the local woodworking shop where he began his carpentry work and later his toy business. He married Kirstine Sörensen, whom he met while in Norway, around 1916. They had 4 sons: Johannes (b.1917), Karl Georg (1919), Godtfred (8 Jul 1920) and Gerhardt (1926). Kirstine died in 1932, leaving OKC to look after the children. Two years later he married Sofie Jörgensen and they had a daughter, Ulla (1935).

Early on Ole involved all four of the brothers in the business. By the late 1940's Karl Georg was in charge of plastics production, Gerhardt was in charge of wood manufacturing and Johannes was responsible for truck deliveries. And Godtfred? He was well on his way to managing the company. He began working in the company when he was 12, by the age of 17 he was designing models and by age 24 he was his father's right hand man.

Godtfred was named Junior Vice President on his 30th birthday in 1950. The next year Ole suffered a stroke and Godtfred progressively assumed more of the management responsibilities as Ole’s heath declined. Godtfred became managing director in 1957 and chairman in 1958 after Ole died. After Godtfred became chairman disagreements with the rest of the family lead him to buy out his brothers’ interests in the company and in 1961 he became the sole owner.

Godtfred (or simply GKC) and his wife Edith had 3 children, Gunhild, Kjeld (27 December 1947) and Hanne. Like his father, Godtfred involved the children in the business at an early age. Package designs from the late 1950’s show all three of the children with the newly-developed Town Plan. In particular, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen (the spelling was a clerical error at his birth) showed promise as an imaginative builder and GKC looked to him as a source of product development.

Kjeld went on to receive a B.Sc. in Economics and Business Administration from the Århus School of Business, and then an MBA in 1972 from IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland. In 1973 he returned to the family enterprise as co-director of the LEGO Company’s technical R&D department and of its first foreign production plant in Switzerland. In 1979 he succeeded his father as CEO. Godtfred died 13 July 1995.

Hanne was tragically killed in a car accident in 1969 and Gunhild, who married and is now Gunhild Kirk Johansen, is co-owner (with Kjeld) of Kirkbi AG, the Swiss holding company that owns the patents and intellectual property of the Lego Group. Her husband, Mogans Johansen, sat on the Lego board of directors from 1977—2007.

Kjeld married Camilla in 1974 and they have three children, Sofie (1975), Thomas (1979) and Agnetes (1982). In October 2004 Kjeld stepped down after 25 years as CEO and for only the second time in the company’s history, a non-family member, Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, was appointed to run the company.

It‘s too early to tell what role Kjeld‘s children will play in the company, but in April 2007 Thomas became a board member of both the Lego Group and Lego Holding.