Eduardo Cosentino, son of Cosentino Group president Francisco Cosentino, became CEO of Cosentino North America in 2010, following the Cosentino Group’s full acquisition of Cosentino North America. Eduardo had served as the Senior Vice President of Sales for the Cosentino Group since 2005, responsible for overseeing the surfacing manufacturer’s sales and marketing efforts across the world. In the past seven years the United States has grown to represent over 60% of the Almeria, Spain-based manufacturer’s sales. Cosentino operates 12 surface processing centers in the United States, as well as two distribution hubs and 37 Cosentino Centers across all of North America.
BUILDER met with Eduardo Cosentino at the Kitchen and Bath Industry Show in Orlando, Florida on January 10th, 2018 to learn more about Cosentino’s expansion into North America, its design expertise, and its plans for the future. The final question in this article was answered via e-mail in February 2018.
How did Cosentino begin, and when did it expand into North America?
My grandfather had a very small workshop in Almeria, Spain. Around 1978, my father took over this small business, with 14 employees at the time. At this time we were focused on marble stone in small quarries we had in Almeria. From there, my father started developing the business together with his two brothers. One of them was located in Barcelona, and the other together with him in Almeria.
Around the end of the 80s, he was looking for machinery or technology to build a product that could reuse the scrap that they had from natural stone production. They found the technology in Italy, and at this moment we introduced what we call Marmolstone. And it was a complete disaster. It was worse than natural stone, but it was more expensive than natural stone.
This was the second bankruptcy that my father had. At that moment he was trying to look for new opportunities. He was inspecting new raw materials, and that was when they found a quartz product. They delivered Silestone products about 1991. And from that moment we started trying to look for an international market, and looking for opportunities outside of Spain.
We started doing business in North America in 1998. And today, 25 years after we introduced Silestone in the marketplace, we can say that we’re present in more than 82 countries, and we have more than 4,000 employees around the world.
At the same time we still have our manufacturing plant in Spain. We are very committed to the community that is around our factory and our town. We believe that when you are creating good business, you need to deliver a sense of thanks back to the community that is around you. And we are very proud of that because we are helping to grow the region, to grow the country, and at the same time we are very happy to be here presenting in the U.S. It’s our most important market. Today, the U.S. represents more than 60% of our sales. And we’ve got very nice plans for the future.
When you introduce a new product, do you introduce it in Spain first before you introduce it in America?
Oh, no. Spain right now only represents 7% of our sales. But we’re looking at what our customers are looking for, and of course the first market that we look is the U.S. because it’s the most important market for the company. And what we try to do is to be nice to the designers, the artists, the kitchen and bath dealers, the builders, and understand the need that they have in terms of products, in terms of design, in terms of performance. Then we try to deliver what they are looking for.
Where would you like to see Cosentino go in the next five years?
We have a very aggressive expansion plan for the next five years. Today, we have more than 140 locations around the world, and we plan to grow to the 200th location in the next five years. What we have tried to do is continue working on innovation, working on design, and being sure that our business model is working well in the marketplace.
It's clear that when you are the leader in the industry, you need to look forward and know what is coming next. For us, the ultra-compact surface (Dekton) is the future of the industry. Of course, we have Silestone, we have granite, we have natural stone. But the ultra-compact surfaces allow us to deliver a new design that is not possible to do in quartz, and top performance that you don’t have in any other product.
With Dekton we are entering a new niche, or a new segment, that we didn’t have in the past. Flooring applications, exterior façades, interior walls, and of course countertops. We have doubled the capacity of the plant because of its success around the world. In three, four years’ time, ultra-compact surfaces will be one of the surfaces with the biggest market share in the market.
There are markets like Belgium, like Italy, like France where we are selling more Dekton than Silestone. And we are still going with Silestone, but it’s true that there are some European markets that are delivering the trend for the coming years. We’re anticipating that the US market will see that change in the next three, four years.
What about these European markets in particular makes Dekton popular there?
I think that Italy is the design country, no? The country that is working in the future of international design, the trends that are coming in the next few years. And it’s not only in our industry, it’s in all the industries. In the fashion business or in any other business, there are some countries in Europe that are going to be [setting trends]. And there are two countries, like Germany and Italy, that are very strong in the kitchen segment, and this is what they are looking for. Maybe five, seven years ago, they were only focused on quartz. And now they are only focused on porcelain products. That does mean that I’m sure that in two, three years’ time we will see that.
Do you foresee that trends in the U.S. will mimic trends in Europe? Or do you think that they’ll go in a completely different direction?
Depends on the region. I think that there are some regions that will try to replicate what is happening in Europe, and there are other regions that are more traditional. They are not looking for, you know, trending stuff or plain colors, and they are looking for more traditional materials. What you see in New York is completely different from what you can find in Kansas City or in Houston, because it’s a more traditional market.
How will your recent re-location from Houston to Miami impact Cosentino North America in the coming years?
Houston will always be in our heart because it’s where we established our start. But in 2016 we decided to do the move from Houston to Miami for three reasons. One is that we want to concentrate the full operation of the core company, the whole Americas, in Miami. In Houston we were only managing the U.S. and Canada. And now we want to manage the U.S., Canada, and all of Latin America and Central America [from one place], and we think that Miami is a very good place to do that.
The second one is, you have four direct flights to Madrid from Miami, and we didn’t have that in Houston. The corporate headquarters for the group is in Spain, and we have a lot of people traveling to Spain and people from Spain traveling to the US, and our life is easier with the location in Miami. It takes about 24 hours to get from Houston to Almeria, and it takes twelve from Miami.
Last but not least, Miami is a huge community in international design. Our relationship with how we are powering the industry is key, and I think Miami allows us to be stronger in the design and architecture community.
What have you learned about the practice of running a business and of creating new products from your family members?
We are the third generation. When you are running a business, the most important thing that you need to do is make sure that you have the best people next to you. There are some people that may think that you know everything, and this is not true. I don’t know anything. The success that we are having is because we have a phenomenal team inside of our organization. And at the end the business is thriving because of its people. When you have a good team you will have success.
The second thing is, I think that you need to work hard, you need to lead by example, and if your team, your people, see that you are working hard, and you are doing what you are asking to do, they will follow you.
Third, I am a person that has a deep passion for innovation. I think that you need to constantly innovate, to be sure that you bring first what the market is looking for, because if you are using that, you can maintain the leadership. We feel very proud of having that opportunity, that Cosentino is doing a good job, a decent job, in the market.
The DeKauri vanity, which includes Dekton by Cosentino, recently won a Best of KBIS award in the Bath category. How did this vanity come about, and what is Cosentino’s plan for the future as far as its production?
DeKauri is Cosentino’s latest collaboration with architect + designer Daniel Germani and Italian furniture manufacturer Riva1920. What we so enjoy about our work with Daniel is that he brings the unlimited applications of Dekton to life in so many forms — from stunning, sculptural furniture to a modern-day made-to-order heirloom like DeKauri, which completely reimagines an element of bathroom design that has long gone unchanged.
DeKauri tells a beautiful design story of two materials: ultra-compact Dekton, a modern, revolutionary surface with unparalleled durability, and 50,000 year-old Kauri wood that Riva1920 harvests from the depths of the peatlands in New Zealand. We’re truly honored with the tremendous acclaim DeKauri has received across the industry, and look forward to its continued success at Salone del Mobile this April.
