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Building a
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JAIR VELLEMAN DUTCH L I G HTI NG I NNOVAT I O N S SITTING AT THE LONG DINING TABLE in his flat overlooking the canals of his hometown of Amsterdam, Jair Velleman leans in and smiles through his thick beard, exuding equal parts intensity and joviality. “Let me ask you something,” he says. “Do you like war? I love war.” It was my first conversation with Velleman, and it was a moment that speaks volumes about this magnanimous, mercurial mammoth of a man. He wasn’t talking about bombs, armies and military actions.
ocT. 2022
He was talking about the business battleground. That moment kept replaying in my head during subsequent conversations over the months following that first meeting. Velleman and his former company, Gavita, revolutionized the grow light industry before he sold it for a “never have to work again” sum more than half a decade ago. Now, like a retired general returning to the war room, he’s coming back to the world that he helped build – this time at the helm of his new lighting company, Dutch Lighting Innovations.