Follow The Leader: Charlotte Borghesi, Co-Founder And Managing Director, Kidzink "I believe that a company at the leading edge globally for school design and school furniture design should be based in the UAE."

This article is a part of the 2024 edition of Entrepreneur Middle East's annual Follow The Leader series, in which enterprise head honchos from the region talk strategy, industry-specific tactics, and professional challenges as they lead their respective businesses to success.

Back in 2017, when Charlotte Borghesi learnt that her children's nursery was about to close as its owner was going to retire, she decided to buy the enterprise to keep it running. Little did she know that in a span of only seven years, that decision would create a ripple effect that would eventually lead her to become the founder and Managing Director of Kidzink, a Dubai-headquartered educational design and manufacturing group that today has projects in 23 countries. "After that purchase [of the nursery], we learned that the owner also had a furniture import business that she was in the process of closing down," Borghesi explains. "After some talks with her, she finally agreed to allow me to purchase that business, which essentially was a trade license, one employee who was currently in the process of closing accounts and sunsetting the business, as well as a hard drive. I found myself in a completely different industry with one employee, who is still with us today, and little more than a piece of paper, and that was the start of Kidzink as it is known today, a global educational design, architectural, and manufacturing firm dedicated to envisioning and realizing spaces and communities, where knowledge flourishes, and the dreams of young people take flight."

At the beginning, Kidzink was in the business of trading school furniture, as Borghesi and her co-founder (and husband), Paolo Borghesi, were buying furniture from Europe, and selling it in the UAE. But this was not without obstacles, as their young company had no brand name and no track record either. "We gained credibility through a number of ways, but initially it was relationship building," Borghesi says. "My husband Paolo and I ensured that we always attended customer meetings so that customers knew us. We also noticed that there was a trend in our sector of over-promising and under-delivering, so we aimed to do the opposite. We never discussed how much money we would make on each project, and indeed, many times we lost money, but our goal was to make our delivery and service amazing, so that all of our customers would talk about us to their friends."

As time went by, the husband-and-wife entrepreneurial duo went on to invest in a more advanced in-house design team that would work with schools to bring innovation to classroom design. "The industry had seen little innovation, which, in turn, was holding back school design," Borghesi says. "It was then that we started to design our own furniture, with the aim that it should be something European manufacturers won't be able to compete with, given their strong focus on mass production; so, our only option was to work with local carpentries here in Dubai. We searched for the best, and despite paying crazy prices for our furniture to be made, we had many issues with unreliable suppliers who oversold their capabilities, low quality, poor services, and quite frankly, it was an impossible situation to work with."

But this desperation led to the creation of their own manufacturing facility that could ensure the provision of high quality, well designed, innovative, and safe furniture to their clients. "We started small with one manufacturing method, and then we invested in high quality machines and materials, and we have already expanded our manufacturing capabilities by 100-fold," Borghesi says. "We've built this up from a small rented warehouse with four people, to our own purpose-built 15,000 sq. m. manufacturing facility that, five years later, produces everything a school needs in-house." In addition, the Kidznik enterprise today also includes in-house architectural firm called the Kidzink Office of Design and Architecture (KODA). "It started as a dream, and three years later, it has become a reality, with over 25 projects in design or under some stage of construction," Borghesi says.

A Kidzink project at Dubai British School. Source: Kidzink

While Kidzink today has projects that range from single room projects of AED50,000 to over AED30 million (as well as a healthy business growth of 40% per year), Borghesi still has the company's first full school order, which was placed in 2019, etched in her memory. "It was a single order of over AED6 million," she says. "The biggest order we had delivered before that was less than one-tenth the size. I can still visualize the day it was confirmed, and the fear we had about how to deliver it. We spent hours as a team planning the execution and all of the details. There were many things that we had never done before, starting with executing a project in Qatar during the regional diplomatic crisis [at the time]. Delivering the project took teamwork, diligence, innovation, creativity, and a lot of hard work, with some headaches. But we delivered everything on time and as planned, and we completely exceeded the customer's expectations. This challenging but significant order, and the way our team delivered it, transformed the trajectory of our company, and played a monumental role in the company we are today."

Speaking about the team at Kidzink, Borghesi—whose three (out of seven) children work for the company—firmly states that they has been core to the success of the company. "When we started, we could not afford experienced and proven talent, and we also found that the best people were not always attracted to startups, and the 'best' graduates always had a target list of companies they wanted to work for," Borghesi recalls. "In spite of that, we specifically sought young talent with tons of energy, drive, creativity, brain power, and confidence, because we knew that the people and the team were key to success. Identifying great talent potential was a huge task, but we gradually we found a core team of amazing fresh graduates that we trained, and we then brought in people from their networks and their friends. This is how we both grew the company, and also fostered a great culture. We still hire for cultural fit and attitude rather than strict technical know-how and experience." Borghesi proudly adds here that the employee voluntary retention rate at Kidzink is above 99%, adding, "Before Kidzink, Paolo and I had spent many years working in some of the most reputable global multinational companies, who celebrated achieving voluntary retention at 75%, and those were companies that had unlimited means and 100+ year reputations, whereas we are just a small family-run business."

Being based in Dubai is another key to Kidzink's success, says Borghesi. "It is home to one of the world's most competitive education markets in the world, the second largest private education market, as it is home to more private schools in close proximity to each other than anywhere else in the world," she says. "I believe that a company at the leading edge globally for school design and school furniture design should be based in the UAE. This market has challenged us, and it also allows us to innovate, create, and differentiate, not just following new cutting-edge trends and innovations in education, construction, and design, but setting the benchmark for our industry globally." Looking back on her own experience, Borghesi's advice for anyone looking to start a business in the UAE is to embrace the optimism and long-term vision of the country, but also to contribute to it. "Find a way to contribute to society, or your sector through your business, and lean into that—make something that you are passionate about and proud of," says Borghesi. "Running a business anywhere in the world can be like a rollercoaster, and this is also true of the UAE where the business landscape is extremely dynamic. But like any rollercoaster, there will be ups and downs, and overall, it should be enjoyable."

When it comes to leadership, doing work that adds value is what headlines Borghesi's approach in that department. "It is about giving yourself freely to others," she adds. "You might give through money or time, or service to a cause, or to your country. Being generous does not deplete your energy; rather, it is the reverse. Secondly, it's about trust. I believe a leader should assume the best in their people, and accept that sometimes they disappoint. Of course, I have been burnt, quite a few times, but it is far more often that I find that people rise to what you believe in them. Finally, leadership should not be about what you do, but who you are. A great company reflects the core values of its leaders. It's important to have a clear guiding philosophy in life, not just one defined by money and business results. I come across people who believe that they should grow more rapidly to earn more money, but if you define success by money and revenues, you always lose. The real scorecard in life is how well you build meaningful relationships, and how well you live your core values."

Now, for all of her accomplishments as a business leader, there's one other achievement of Borghesi's that we'd like to highlight here—in February 2024, she made history by leading Team Kidzink to victory in the Dubai Duty Free SB20 Triple Sailing Championships, and thereby becoming the first UAE-flagged and women-helmed team to secure this world championship title.

Looking back on this win, Borghesi says that there are many parallels when it comes to success in business and sport. "I would actually say that being an entrepreneur helped me learn what I needed to do to win the SB20 World Championships," Borghesi says. "These are lessons across business and sport that can be applicable anytime you are working towards achieving a big goal, from setting a goal and obsessively working towards it, to accepting that sacrifice is part of the equation."

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THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Charlotte Borghesi shares her tips for entrepreneurs

Ditch the ego "When things aren't going well, take personal responsibility. When things are going well, give your team the credit. Never attribute anything to luck. Through my journey since founding Kidzink, we have made so many mistakes, mainly through empowering people to do something they have never done before. At the same time, we have delivered so many amazing things that you could say we have been in the right place at the right time. We have never fired anyone for making a mistake, and we have never just been lucky. We have worked hard to convert any lucky situation into an opportunity, and we have given everyone the space to grow and make mistakes."

Work on understanding yourself first "There is an amazing book written by Patrick Lencioni, The Three Big Questions for a Frantic Family, in which he turns his sights on the most important organization in our lives, the family. This book is thoughtprovoking, and it has a process at the end to help you define your personal and family values. This helped me set the foundation of our Kidzink values, ensuring that as our company grows, it reflects me as a person and leader. In addition to values, know your strengths and weaknesses."

Surround yourself with the right people, even if they are not the most experienced, and trust them "Our ultimate strategy has been to find passionate, driven young people, put them in a meritocratic culture, challenge them with big goals, and give them a stake in the outcome. The production head of our factory, Laswin Abraham, joined us at age 22, straight out of university, having studied civil engineering. He had a passion for designing and making furniture, but no experience. His hire came after we hired an experienced head of manufacturing from one of our main global competitors who, ultimately, was not agile enough to run a startup. We parted ways with him after a few months, and we threw Laswin in the deep-end, but with the right support from us as leaders, and with the right learning opportunities. We have sent him around the world to spend time in the best manufacturing facilities in the industry, and I can guarantee there is no one who can deliver what he is delivering for our company, and our customers, anywhere else in the world."

Have a relentless determination to do what is right, not what is easy "It's important to have an absolute commitment to do whatever it takes to make your company great. Often, doing what is right also comes at a cost, but this investment pays back every time. I see it over and over again with how we delight our customers, delivering on our promises, no matter how hard the challenge is."

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