Profile: Kristina Karlsson

Stationery entrepreneur

Stationery entrepreneur

Like many people, Kristina Karlsson looked forward to the new school year and the thought of new notebooks, pencils and folders – and the promise of organisation they bring.

Swedish-born Karlsson moved to Australia in 1995 and in 2001 established her stationery business, kikki.K (named after her childhood nickname), with a boutique in Melbourne, partly because she couldn’t find the stationery items she needed to adequately set up her home office.

By 2005 she’d branched out into Sydney and Brisbane and today has a network of 31 stores throughout Australia and New Zealand plus an online boutique. Karlsson sees the kikki.K range as a fashion accessory. As well as a core range of products, new “fashion” ranges are regularly introduced to offer customers something a bit different.

Ask Karlsson about the economic downturn and you get the feeling she’s quietly rubbing her hands together. “We haven’t seen any impact yet,” she says. “I put stationery in the lipstick and chocolate category, where people like to buy nice things in tough times in order to make themselves feel good.”

The expansion of her business has created about 300 jobs, a 68 per cent increase on turnover for the 12 months to 2008 and prepared her for a leap into the big league. Late last year the first kikki.K store opened in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

In the next three years Karlsson, together with a franchise partner, plans to open 25 stores in the Middle East, including one in the Dubai Mall, which will be the world’s biggest shopping mall when completed.

It’s little wonder, then, that one of Karlsson’s personal mantras is: “Tough times never last, but tough people do.”