We take a few wrong turns down country roads before finding Rupert Kammerich’s finca. After thirty years as a commercial director in global food production, we don’t expect him to wave towards a farmhouse 500 metres away and tell us it belonged to his Mallorcan family. “There’s something special about the air,” he says, recalling childhood holidays with his aunt, her Mallorcan husband and their children. As a boy, the island felt like a dream to him. Sitting outside on the porch of his own finca, it still does. We arrive expecting a classic burnout story. It isn’t one.
The pull of leadership
“I loved the corporate world,” Rupert tells us. He was in his element developing teams, shaping strategy, leading from the front. “I loved being in an influential and leading position.” His routine involved near-daily flights from Tokyo to Auckland – a pace that left little room for home life with his husband, Andreas. Yet the way he speaks about cooking, or the piano in the dining room with classical sheets left open, suggests he always kept ways of reconnecting to something deeper. “There’s more to life than the job,” he says. “Even if it’s your passion, you have to know when to let go.”
He sensed the chapter drawing to a natural close and wanted to be deliberate in turning the page. “I want to live and I want to lead,” he says. “I do not want to be lived or be led.” Then came the call. His cousin was moving in with her mother and asked whether Rupert and Andreas might buy the family finca. They spoke over the weekend; by Monday, the contract was signed. “Everything that I have seen across the world – Australia, New Zealand, France – everything is here,” he says of Mallorca.
The Mallorcan chapter
Today, the setting feels far removed from airport lounges. The finca is still being renovated. The swimming pool is positioned towards the twin peaks of Puig de Alaró and Puig s’Alcadena. Stone walls Rupert built himself cradle aloe vera plants used for face cream; olives from their trees are pressed at the local cooperativa into oil. “I’m a city boy who discovered nature,” he says.
It’s a new beginning rather than a quiet end. Craving what he calls “mental gymnastics”, Rupert has recently partnered with the founder of the construction company RM Baleares and now enjoys working in sales and marketing, motivated above all by human interaction. “There is this moment in life where you know, that’s it – and you shouldn’t let this window of opportunity pass,” he reflects, grateful for both the having the opportunity and the courage to take it.
