Vision 2020

Danish family-owned Lindberg, led by Henrik Lindberg, is often referred to as the “Apple of the eyewear business”. Here’s why

- VARUN GODINHO

You could characterise a young Henrik Lindberg growing up in the Seventies as someone who wanted to get as far away as he could from the eyewear business. His father, Poul-Jørn, was an optometrist and Henrik had realised, first-hand, the labourintensive nature of the profession that necessitated a commitment that required long hours invested daily and spilled into weekends too.

“I promised myself when I was a kid and a teenager that I would never ever enter the optical business,” Henrik, the founder, CEO and creative director of Danish family-owned eyewear company Lindberg, tells Gulf Business. “So I graduated as an architect and began working as an architect.”

At around the same time though, his father reached an age where he required to start wearing glasses. Dissatisfied with any of the options that were available in the market, he decided to design his own. Henrik had a keen sense of design, and Poul-Jørn approaching his son to work on the design was an organic decision. “My father asked if I could spend some evening and weekends together with him to find if we could make something. In the beginning, the idea for us was to finalise a design and then find someone who could manufacture that design. My plan was to go back to the architecture business when this was over.”