Company History
Our Founders
History
Led by the passion of being a music fan and performer, Uwe Kirchfeld studied signal and control theory at the University of Paderborn, Germany. He started his entrepreneurial career with the aspiration to develop and manufacture high-end loudspeakers and amplifiers. Simultaneously, he founded a retail shop for musical instruments and audio technology. The idea was quite simple: Supporting artists, musicians, and engineers as a partner delivering fair and honest consulting based on own experiences and much passion.
During this time, Uwe's wife, Katharina Kirchfeld, worked as head of laboratory in a hospital. In 1992 the couple decided to move to the northwestern part of Germany – more precisely, the Emsland – to take over a local music shop. Their business accelerated quickly to the next level. Thanks to his very personal and extensive consulting approach, Uwe quickly reached customers all over Germany – mainly from the professional event-production and recording-studio-businesses.
With the company's increasing success, Uwe and Katharina realized that it required building up financial and management competencies. This development led to Katharina's decision to join the company as chief financial officer.
In the early 2000s the trend towards online shopping also reached the MI-industry. Factors like a personal consultation or relationship towards the reseller became decreasingly important. Nevertheless, as personal relationships remained an essential fundament of the Kirchfeld family's entrepreneurial philosophy, they decided to leverage this core competency towards a market where it could unfold its full potential: distribution, which led to the foundation of S.E.A. Vertrieb & Consulting GmbH.
The approach of connecting personal consultation and long-term partnerships with passion for technology, music, and art remains an essential part of S.E.A. up until today. To ensure this philosophy does not get lost, Katharina and Uwe, together with their sons, decided for an early order of succession. Meanwhile, they both enjoy their well-deserved retirement. Since 2014, their second son, Alexander Kirchfeld, took over the leadership of the company – with a clear goal: to make it ready for the future.