LEONAS KONTVAINIS

I came to USA as a 17 year old lone teenager on an athletic scholarship from an Eastern European country of Lithuania. Thanks to hard work, dedication and some good people that helped me along the way, I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Management from Georgia Southwestern State University in 2006 following a successful collegiate basketball career (Go Canes!) that included appearances in NCAA Gulf South Conference Tournament in Tupelo, MS as well as 2005 NAIA National Tournament in Kansas City, MO.

After becoming the youngest Sports Information Director in the NCAA D2 Peach Belt Conference, I received my MBA from GSW in 2008 and joined what was then Hickory Springs Manufacturing Company (now HSM) as an International Sales Manager Trainee to pursue what would become a career and obsession with furniture.

Upon completion of an extensive training program in North Carolina, USA, I was tasked by the VP of International Sales with developing distribution channels in Europe and relocated back to my home country of Lithuania in 2009. We quickly expanded into Russia, UK, Poland and across southern Europe and I was promoted to General Manager of Sales & Operations in 2012.

With Hickory Springs entering restructuring and closing its China manufacturing operations in 2013, I was invited to join our former distributor Motion Italia as International Sales Director where I laid the foundation for the company to enter the United States & Canadian markets.

Three years later, in 2016 I left Motion and founded GFC (Global Furniture Components), UAB a supplier of components for furniture industry. GFC is currently one of the leading suppliers of complex mechanisms systems for manufacturing of relax furniture in the Baltic States and Central Europe. GFC also manufactures and supplies custom made home cinema seating into the global residential audio & video industry. 

In 2018 I was asked by Remacro Technology Company (RMT) to join the team as Director of Sales Europe and helped the company establish a distribution network across key European furniture manufacturing regions. I resigned from my position at RMT in 2022 to pursue other business opportunities, but I continue to enjoy extremely friendly personal and business relationship with the company as their strategic consultant and distribution partner. 

In 2023 I spent one year collaborating with Recor Group in Belgium helping them develop new products and streamline sourcing capabilities including from Italy and China directly. I also helped broker the acquisition by Recor of company Varam, later to be renamed Belform. 

Over the past two decades I have worked in more than 30 countries, met hundreds of amazing people and initiated numerous projects in different sectors of the furniture industry and beyond. I was even lucky to meet my wonderful wife Dainora during a visit to a furniture factory where she was working as International Sales Manager and life has blessed us with two beautiful daughters Patricija & Lukrecija. 

In short, MB Kontvainis is a direct result of my desire to apply my extensive knowledge of furniture and to utilize thousands of industry relationships worldwide to help executives of different companies find new clients, develop new products and safely enter into unchartered international markets. 

It gives great personal pleasure to connect the right people, because many times “it is who you know and not what you know” that really matters in life.