Johan Boden, 39, and Carl Sturen, 36 $26 million (combined) #6 Richest
Sweden’s Johan Boden and Carl Sturen were hardly out of their teens when they first came to Ukraine in 1993, looking to replace a cucumber crop lost in Estonia that year. Their impression was so positive that their next visit was already to identify a production plant, finally choosing the Kakhovka site in Kherson Oblast.
In 1995, Boden and Sturen got a huge boost when fellow Swede and billionaire, professor Hans Rausing, the founder of Tetra-Pak food packaging company agreed to invest in them. They christened their new company, Chumak (meaning historic Ukrainian itinerant merchants) with $5.4 million in start-up investment. The brand would soon become a household name to food consumers across the country.
Johan Boden (focus.ua)
Chumak’s big breakthrough came with ketchup. The product was unknown in Ukraine, so much so that the company had a hard time convincing Ukrainian bureaucrats that such a thing existed at all. But once ketchup received official recognition as a food product, there was no looking back.
By 1997, Chumak’s distribution network covered all of Ukraine and Boden and Sturen purchased a second production factory in Kherson Oblast. It processes ripe Kherson tomatoes within hours of harvesting, ensuring freshness. Chumak then expanded into mayonnaise – and then crucially became the first former Soviet-based supplier of these products to McDonald’s fast food restaurants. In 2000, the company grew by 78 percent, and in 2001 they launched Europe’s largest fresh tomato processing plant handling a complete cycle from harvested tomatoes to finished product.
Chumak’s international potential was recognized in 2008, when investment companies Dragon Capital and East Capital Baring Ukraine Fund jointly bought 67 percent stock of Chumak from billionaire Rausing for an undisclosed sum. Boden and Sturen own the remaining stake. Boden is currently the director of corporate development and board member, while Sturen is the president of the company that employs 1,000 people.
Carl Sturen (UNIAN)
Their presence in Kakhovka, a Dnipro River port city with 38,000 people, has improved the city immensely. It had the highest gross domestic product per capita in recent years and, at least until 2009, had the highest foreign direct investment per capita before being surpassed by Odesa’s Illichivsk due to the large port and elevator project there.
The two Swedes are also involved in a number of local charity projects, including an orphanage and a house for people living with disabilities. Sturen has played a significant role as the honorable consul of Sweden in Ukraine, working to change lives in a settlement called Old Swedish Village located some 50 kilometers from Kakhovka.
