Report: A tech CEO/golf nut is living the high life (even sponsoring the Dubai Desert Classic) while his employees go without pay
The Dubai Desert Classic has become one of the more high-profile events on the DP World Tour, using a strategy of luring top professional golfers through lucrative guaranteed appearance fees.
The website for the event — which was won in 2022 by Viktor Hovland — lists Slync.io as the current corporate naming sponsor. The San Francisco-based logistics technology company took over after Omega’s 12-year run with the event concluded in 2021.
Slync.io is a firm that, according to its releases, combines industry expertise, software solutions and digital platforms to solve challenges in global logistics.
But while the CEO of the upstart firm has been enjoying the good life — complete with an appearance in the recent JP McManus Pro-Am and a membership at the expensive Vaquero Golf Club near Dallas — the almost 100 employees of the company have had long gaps without paychecks, according to a shocking story on Forbes.com.
From the story:
Over the past 18 months, while his company was running out of money and struggling to raise funding or attract new customers, Kirchner had bought a private jet valued at $15 million, joined an exclusive Texas country club, purchased luxury cars, invested in a European tech startup and attempted to buy the English football team Derby County.
Chris Kirchner plays his tee shot at the 10th hole during Day Two of the JP McManus Pro-Am at Adare Manor on July 05, 2022, in Limerick, Ireland. (Photo by Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images)
According to Forbes, Kirchner had been selling TVs for Best Buy just a few years ago, but his rocket-like rise to a perceived perch atop the tech world allowed for a newfound lifestyle that included the membership at Vaquero, which is ranked as one of the best private courses in Texas, according to Golfweek’s Best’s state-by-state list.
The initiation at the club, which includes a Tom Fazio-designed course, is $175,000 with annual dues over $15,000, according to one report.
Slync also became aligned with pro golfers, and the Dallas Stars of the National Hockey League.
From the Forbes piece:
With the Goldman-led cash infusion, Kirchner sought to parlay his love of golf—and sport more broadly—into a business focus of Slync. Even though there seemed to be little correlation between a logistics tech company and the PGA, Slync began sponsoring professional players like Justin Rose and Albane Valenzuela. The company signed a multimillion-dollar sponsorship agreement with the NHL ice hockey team Dallas Stars. Kirchner told employees the sponsorships were part of the company’s new go-to-market strategy. “Execs don’t buy software from websites,” one employee recalled Kirchner telling him. “They buy it based on relationships and experiences.” (Rose, Valanzuela and the Dallas Stars did not respond to a request for comment.)
During the summer of 2021, he hosted a group of employees at the Vaquero, where he bragged about playing golf with Saudi princes and flying to exotic places on his private jet, according to an employee who was there. “The lifestyle that he was living just didn’t seem real,” says one former employee.
According to the piece, Slync is paying $40 million over five years to become the chief sponsor of the Dubai Desert Classic and while Kirchner is allegedly in the process of selling off his jet and other assets, the tournament sponsorship appears to be cemented. As part of the sponsorship, Slync will receive TV commercials and an executive retreat.
Kirchner told GulfNews.com prior to last year’s event that the deal to sponsor the Dubai Desert Classic came together quickly.
“We got into golf recently with our first player endorsements and I enjoy the game personally on an amateur level and wanted to get into the game on a sponsorship level and be part of the community,” Kirchner said in January. “That was step one, and then — through some casual conversations about previous sponsors pulling out and if the Dubai Desert Classic would be something of interest to us or even worth a conversation. It really only became more concrete around the Masters in April last year, when we discovered this would become a Rolex Series event — one of the elite events on the DP World Tour.”
