Many involved in the Malaysian Sporting fraternity will surely know Mr. Keld Kristiansen the Executive Chairman of Carbon Worldwide. I personally met ths Sports Promoter Extraordinaire and had the pleasure or working together with him during the World Cup of Golf in 1999 when I was Regional Director at Unisys who was a sponsor of the event and he was helming CNBC Sports who was the organizer of the event.
Keld spent much of his education in the US and started a professional tennis career after playing in college. Keld played on the ATP circuit for five years and leveraging his experience as a former professional athlete he decided to use his experience to establish a sports marketing company based in Asia in 1992.
Keld Borup Kristiansen is Danish by birth and grew up in both Denmark and the US but he must be a Malaysian at heart. Over the last 20 years Keld has contributed tremendously to Malaysian Sports. Always in the background, he has work tirelessly to showcase Malaysia to the sporting world.
Keld has brought many major International Events to Malaysian shores and together with it many international sports personalities. In 1999 he was instrumental in bringing Tiger Woods to Malaysia for the World Cup of Golf 1999 that was held at the Mines Golf and Country Club During that time Keld was at the helm of CNBC Sports. He was also instrumental in bringing the A1 Grand Prix To Malaysia
He is known to be a master negotiator. His unique ability to deal with private corporation and government made his a Master promoter of Sporting Event in the Asian region. One of his key strength is in structuring of the commercial program for an event, a sport, a tourism campaign, or in media properties. This experience is at all levels ranging from the conceptualisation of a project to financing and implementation.
One of his unique features is that even in the face of adversity or the biggest problems he is rarely seen without his trademark smile. To get a deal done he seems to come up with solutions and answers even in the most hopeless situations. This is one fact that i have personally witnessed. The fact that most of his key management staff have been with him from day one speaks volumes of how he takes care of those who come under his wing
For the last 20 years, he has been successfully involved in commercially developing sports, entertainment and media properties across the globe with specific focus on the Asia Pacific region in a wide range of projects such as PGA TOUR golf events, European Tour golf events, WTA and ATP tennis events, FIA motorsport events such as the F1 and A1 Grand Prix, Sailing Match Race, TV program partnerships (CNBC Sports) and many more. He has been involved in the Maybank Malaysian Open and CIMB GOlf Classic.
He is on the board of many of the companies involved in the development of sports, entertainment and media.
In 2010 Keld was instrumental in bringing the BMW Malaysia Open to Malaysian shores and getting BMW to be the main sponsor.
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| Mr. Keld Kristiansen, Executive Chairman, Carbon Media Management; Mr. Cheng Joo Chong, Vice President, Lawn Tennis Association of Malaysia (LTAM); Mr.Geoffrey Briscoe, Managing Director, BMW Group Malaysia; Yang Berhormat Dato' Ahmad Shabery Cheek, Minister of Youth and Sports Malaysia |
The event has been a huge success of the years and is currently going on at the Royal Selangor Club from the March 2 - 8 2015, Keld is the Tournament Director of this event.
He continues to bring high value sporting events to Malaysia like the BMW Malaysia Open, World Cup of Golf A1 Grand Prix racing and others, These events bring a huge return of investments to Malaysia in terms of tourism visitors and investments into Malaysia through International Sponsors. These events also garner huge tv viewership , that indirectly promotes Malaysia.
Keld and his team have brought in Millions to Malaysia and should be getting more accolades for what they have done but this humble group continues to work behind the scene
The Ministry of Sports and the Ministry of Tourism should take into account of the effort put in by individuals like Keld and his team. Many a times the right credit does not go to the right people. In moving forward i hope the current Minister of Sports who has been doing a great job so far, takes notice of companies like Carbon Worldwide and gives them the necessary to support to continue to make Malaysia a Preferred Sporting Destination for Major Worldwide Events.
