2 weeks Ago By [email protected] (Alex Langridge)
A young Christopher B Munday could be found trawling alleyways looking for rusty old bikes to fix up and sell from his shed, working the markets or going door-to-door selling dresses. Now 60 and a multi-millionaire, his life could not be more different from his council estate childhood, as he told senior reporter Alex Langridge. Adopted after being born in Woking, Surrey, Christopher grew up in Boucher Drive, Northfleet, with his parents and brother, who was also adopted but from a different family.
He said: “I would describe my parents as full of love and low on money. We grew up very, very poor, but we did not realise it because we did not know anyone who was rich. “We lived in a home without central heating and double glazing.
I joke that we used to open the window during the winter to let the heat in. “Both my parents worked but you never asked for anything. You opened your wardrobe and there was one pair of training shoes and one pair of jeans, that was how life was.
“We never went hungry and they always provided a meal but I remember my mum used to send me to the shop to get ‘bones for the dog’ but they were for us. “My mum was an incredible cook. She made something out of nothing and I would come back with those bones and she would put a stew on and we would eat that for the next week.
“I think of an experience that changed my life. I remember one day I was at home and there was a knock at the door and it was a lady from our church and she had a suitcase. “I thought she had left her husband but she came into the kitchen and put the suitcase on the table and it was full of food for our family.
I remember my dad coming home and just seeing him bursting into tears. “It was a good childhood. It was a great, fantastic life but we had nothing.
If you wanted money, you got it yourself.” The former Shears Green Junior School and Northfleet School for Boys’ pupil started working when he was around seven or eight. He added: “I have always worked and found a way of making money.
I think that I had a desire instilled in me that my life was not the life I wanted.” Christopher explained he had many odd jobs including cleaning cars, delivering eggs, fixing and selling bikes, selling door-to-door and on the markets and working at a fish and chip shop and bakers. He then started working in the tissue industry and joined the paper mill Bowater Scott, which produced well-known brands like Andrex, before it was bought by Kimberly Clark.
He went on to work at its subsidiaries, including Scott Tissue, working his way up from sales representative to principal and corporate officer before deciding the best way to make money was to own and sell businesses. Through the course of his career, Christopher, who also lived in Hartlip, Sittingbourne , has been involved in transactions that total around $11 billion. However, when he first started he did not have a form of higher education and quickly decided to help him progress he wanted a degree in business so started studying at the Open University.
As he became successful he was able to treat his parents, who have both since passed away, with one trip with his dad being particularly memorable. He said: “His first ever new suit that he ever purchased, I bought for him. I took him to Burton’s in Gravesend, he did not know why we were going there and I told him I was there to buy him a suit and he burst into tears because he did not know what size he was.
” In 2006, the dad-of-six decided he wanted a quieter life so sold his businesses in England, retired early and he and wife Louise relocated the family to Alpine in Utah. The Mormons, who have been married for 40 years, now live in a $18 million house and have 15 grandchildren. But Christopher was not content in early retirement and after “aggravating the life out of his family” he decided it was time to find a new project so became the chairman of a struggling security company.
He then joined private equity company Golden Gate Capital, which has the likes of Herbalife and Rocket Dog on its portfolio, as an operating partner. However, in 2018, he decided to quit the role after he acquired the marketing agency 2020 Companies which he was the chief executive of and has around 10,000 employees. The entrepreneur also runs the investment firm Luxstone Group with his children at a family office and has backed more than 115 businesses.
But how did Christopher go from a youngster on a Kent council estate to running some of the biggest names in business? He said: “To think where I was and to think how much I have been blessed and what has happened to my family has been pretty incredible. “Everything good in my life has come from either people that were good to me or experiences or principles that I learned and most of it came from that little Gravesend and Northfleet area. “I am just very, very blessed to have had people who helped me or gave me an opportunity.
I am not the smartest person but I am disciplined and I work very, very hard. “You have to know your why. I think that is what people need to understand, what is your why? What is your purpose? What are you trying to do? “Then you need to stay incredibly focused and remember that you can do it and ignore anyone who tells you you cannot.
” Christopher was diagnosed with blood cancer in 2009 and said it gave him a renewed focus on what matters most and motivated him to have “an impact and try to do good”. Alongside his wife Louise, who also grew up in Northfleet, the pair run a foundation using their own money to support organisations and have helped patients access healthcare, provided laptops to schools and offered scholarships for university. And despite living the American Dream, they still remember their hometown, where some of their families still live, and recently donated £50,000 to Gifted Young Gravesham (GYG).
Christopher said he found it “staggering” to learn many youth groups are at threat of closing following a change in Kent County Council (KCC) funding. He added: “I thought I have got to do something. It costs £200,000 a year to run that program, which is not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things.
“If you can just affect one person, why are we squabbling over £200,000? “I really believe in the youth. I feel we have got to invest in them and motivate them and I think GYG is one of the places that does that. “I am really hoping that somebody gets a grip on this.
You cannot tell me that there is no waste somewhere that can be redirected to help these young people. “I have now got this bee in my bonnet that I want to help Gravesend and Northfleet in any way that I can. I have got the resources to do it and I plan to do it.
” The donation to GYG was the Louise and Christopher B Munday Foundation’s first to an organisation based outside of the US..
