IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad passes on the torch

Mathias Kamprad
new chairman board of directors

The founder
of IKEA is quitting as a member of the board of directors of Inter Ikea Group,
the company within the empire that owns the brand and the concept. Mathias Kamprad was already a member of
the board of directors, but is now taking over the role of chairman from Per
Ludvigsson, who will retire at age seventy.

“I see this
as a good time for me to leave the board of Inter IKEA Group. By that we are
also taking another step in the generation shift that has been ongoing for some
years”, said Ingvar Kamprad.

Not
completely on the side-lines

Yet Ingvar
Kamprad is not completely put on the side-lines: he remains involved with the
Dutch foundation Ingka, which owns 302 of 343 shops worldwide. He also still
works in Liechtenstein, in another branch of the IKEA empire’s tangle of companies and
foundations.

Kamprad is
already 87 years old: he founded IKEA seventy years ago and was CEO until 1986.
After that he limited himself to his role in a few boards of the group. His two
other sons, Jonas and Peter, also have managerial positions at the company.