KB Sterling is a trademark of the P.T. Kawan Baik corporation. The P.T. Kawan Baik corporation first opened its doors for business in 1999. Established in Bali, Indonesia as a legal foreign investment corporation, the companies’ stock shares are split on a 50/50 basis between U.S. and Indonesian shareholders. The two major shareholders are Made Sandiago and Andrew Tull.
Made Sandiago acts as the commissary as well as the head designer for the company. Made is a business accountant by formal education but he has long since left that line of work to pursue a career more closely related to the arts. Since a youth, Made has always been very interested in the arts and crafts of the local Balinese artists and craftsmen. Living closely to them, Made learned many of the designing and other artistic techniques used. He was most involved with local artists including painters, carvers of wood, bone and other materials, as well as craftsmen of hand made silver jewelry. To see some of his design tips for silver jewelry go to his official web site http://www.madesandiago.com/
In 1993 Made took a job as an accountant for one of the first companies in Bali that used casting equipment for production of silver jewelry. Shortly thereafter he became their office manager and worked closely with foreign buyers helping to design and produce their seasonal lines. Giving much credit to Made, they soon became one of the most sought out companies for buyers of silver jewelry who do their production in Bali. Around that time Made realized that silver jewelry design and manufacture were more suited to him as a career than accounting so he decided to make his move. In 1998 he joined up with Andrew and they started preparing to open their own production facilities.
Andrew Tull acts as the President Director of P.T. Kawan Baik and oversees all production as well as researches new technology related to silver jewelry casting and production. He moved to Bali in 1989 from Columbus, Ohio, USA to start business dealings directly with the producers of hand crafted silver jewelry in Bali and for several years ran an agency supplying hand crafted silver jewelry to various buyers from the United States. Due to the limitations of producing silver jewelry by hand he began having jewelry cast at one of the few local companies who owned casting equipment at that time. After researching the possibilities of opening up a foreign investment company in Bali to do his own casting, the choice was made to start his own production facilities. Soon after that he met Made and since both of their interests were in the same field, they were a perfect match.
Since the year 2000, P.T Kawan Baik has been producing and designing not only their own line of jewelry but for several major labels in the business as well. Hundreds of retail outlets purchase from their online stores and several private label designers do production exclusively at P.T. Kawan Baik. Many of them originally connected through P.T. Kawan Baiks first official online store www.kbsterling.com |