The story
- Albert Einstein
With the opening of CARAMA Family Office, my wife Bente and I are realizing a long-held wish to secure our family fortune in the best way possible.
The starting point for CARAMA Family Office is capital preservation, while we also wish to invest in and collaborate with companies that have a sympathetic purpose and prioritize and feel responsible for the nature and climate around us.
The basic idea is rooted in my own and Bente’s upbringing and life in Rødovre – close to the nature around Vest Volden – where we’ve always lived, and from where our values and beliefs are rooted.
This place is also where Pandora was created back in 2000 with the idea that every person should be able to express their own story and their own values through a piece of jewelry.
Pandora – and that idea – is the reason why CARAMA Family Office exists today.
“
- Kenneth Ramstrup, Founder
De tidlige år
As a young man I went to business school and was trained as a merchant’s clerk. At the end of my twenties, I studied Sales and Marketing.
“For most of my career I worked as an outreach salesman.”
– Kenneth Ramstrup, Founder
After a few years in a supermarket, I started as a 21-year-old salesman. First as a driving salesman, where I sold cakes to grocers and supermarkets throughout the area around Copenhagen.
Afterwards I had a year at Copenhagen’s Grønttorv and then moved on to selling distribution of addressless printed materials to private households throughout Denmark. I stayed here for 11 years.
The last 5 years as sales manager. My fuel was passion and hard work.
Jewelry as a business
In 1992 I was contacted by my childhood friend Per Enevoldsen: Would I like to start as a salesperson in his jewelery wholesale company called Populair Smykker?
It was the start of a big business adventure, not in Denmark alone, but all over the world. Per Enevoldsen and I had been friends during our teenage years.
Per was apprenticed as a goldsmith, and after completing his apprenticeship he started his first goldsmith business in Copenhagen.
Per is an entrepreneur beyond all limits, and the business soon developed from a shop to the wholesale company Populair Smykker.
Because of our friendship, over the years I became an integral part of the company and a sparring partner for Per.
In 1999 we developed the PANDORA concept. Our goal with the concept/collection was – as in other years – to create a collection that could secure the turnover in the existing business for the next few years. It got bigger.
Pandora
In January 2000, I sold the first PANDORA concept package in the world, and from there it went quickly.
From being a small local jewelry wholesaler in 1999, PANDORA is today a publicly listed C25 company with 25,000 employees worldwide.
PANDORA was listed on the stock exchange in 2010, and I left the company in 2011 to manage and invest my own fortune.
Together with my children, Martin and Camilla, we established our company CARAMA Invest – a name made according to CA from Camilla and RA from Ramstrup and Ma from Martin.
The purpose back then as well as now is to ensure that the family fortune remains for many generations to come. This is the main purpose for both Bente and me, and the main purpose behind the changes that we are now pushing for.
“
- Albert Einstein
CARAMA Family Office
With the establishment of CARAMA Family Office, we are now raising our ambitions to several levels of professional management, and have appointed Martin Lumbye as director and he will be heading a small team of experienced and skilled people. Martin has been a board member of CARAMA Invest and KR-Kurs ApS, and we have built a trusting relationship over many years.
Together with a former colleague from Pandora and a long-time close friend, Michael Lund Petersen, and his wife Charlene, we have chosen to join forces and share office space and employees. Michael and Charlene are now starting “POLAR BEAR”, which is the name of the company they wish to start and develop and one day pass on to their future generations. In this way, the circle is closed and together we look forward to new goals and a new era.
At CARAMA Family Office, we aim for a world that “moves forward in balance”, and therefore CARAMA Family Office is looking for healthy opportunities to develop our business.
However, we also know that you can’t predict where the road will take us. My professional career taught me the importance of being open to new possibilities. We do our best to work with the companies that we invest in. When we work together, we can reach our goal of success.
/ Bente & Kenneth Ramstrup
Rødovre, March 2023
