AMBROSIUS KLAVENESS
Born on December 3rd, 1887, Ambrosius grew up under poor conditions with his mother. At a very young age, he showed himself as a good craftsman. He got his education at The State School of Arts and Crafts in Oslo and was offered a job as a teacher after finishing his education.
DAGFINN KLAVENESS
Dagfin was Ambrosius' son. He soon became interested in crafts and shoemaking - probably inherited from his father. After primary school, he started practising shoe crafts at Peter Andersen in Oslo. The workshop was the Norwegian royal family footwear supplier. At the age of 27, he became part-owner of the business. At that time, he got a job offer from Bergen Skofabrikk as a production manager, so he moved to Bergen with his family. The testimonies show he was an excellent manager and shoe technician at the big 300-employee company. However, the stormy climate in Bergen was challenging to manage for his wife and two children, so they decided to move back to Oslo.
In 1957 he founded Klaveness Skofabrikk, in Sandefjord.
At that time, there were about 150 shoe factories in Norway, but they were losing in the competition with lower-cost countries; across the country, businesses were closing. One major Norwegian newspaper, "Aftenposten", under the heading "There Are Still Optimists", described Dagfinn Klaveness as a man who wouldn't give up. When Dagfinn died in 1981, there were only five factories left.
In 1968, Klaveness Skofabrikk started exporting to Sweden.
BJØRN KLAVENESS
In 1984, Bjørn Klaveness inherited the company. At that time, there were only five shoe factories in Norway, compared with approximately 150 factories at the end of the 50s when Klaveness was established. Due to the high cost in Norway, factories were forced to shut down or outsource production to other countries. In the 1980s, Bjørn and his family moved to Portugal to establish a new production unit. In the 1990s, he contributed to creating a new production unit in Poland.
Bjørn is educated as a mechanical engineer and has a master's degree in Design. He has actively contributed to developing and implementing new product ranges and concepts such as FIA, OIL and OAS into Klaveness Footwear.
Bjørn is in constant search for new solutions to benefit the consumers. Today, Bjørn is Chairman of the Board and R&D Manager.
NEXT GENERATION
Kristian Klaveness, Bjørn's son, has a master's degree in design and a bachelor's in marketing.
Kristian is the CEO and Member of the Board of Klaveness Footwear.
Klaveness Footwear now has 239 employees in four companies, serving an international market.
A big part of the production is pair-by-pair, made-to-order footwear.
Klaveness is a Scandinavian footwear brand that targets specific needs with unique solutions.