Bj?rn, Ninna and Mats

PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE

Cars are driven by people. And cars are made by people. There are probably more of us than you imagine. I wish I knew all, but at least I know some and I am very grateful for that. 

BJ?RN

I have a very special relationship to the name. It was on our list of two when we named our second son - all the way until we had to choose. He is since then called Tor. Nearly three years ago, a young man actually named Bj?rn walked into my office, I believe at the time employed by Google in the UK. We tried to figure out if we studied together, but neither of us could remember each other. A really short time into the talk, he asked me how Volvo thinks it can create a seamless and amazing user experience if its creation is spread across three different functions; CED*, R&D and Design. His question has been itching ever since, or rather until just recently when we announced our globally unified UX-team. One team to lead them all, one team to find them, one team to bring them all, and in the brightness shine on them. Thanks, Bj?rn for making the obvious clear. Many times, the most important job of a leader – to create clarity in chaos. And welcome to your new job, leading our commercial digital team.

NINNA

I know of only one Ninna. She and I met, as far as I recall, the first time nearly thirty years ago. One of us played the hifi speakers extremely loud to enjoy music while taking a shower and the other was trying to enjoy a BBQ party in the yard outside of the dorm and argued the right to choose music for the occasion. Ninna has since proven that she can lead teams big and small for a part of the car or an entire car line here at Volvo Cars. In my view Ninna embodies a leadership that is both confident and benevolent. She listens and gives guidance. She is brave. She is curious and she has successfully kept our SPA2 line-up together for R&D and will now take a new job in the R&D management team, leading one of two hardware teams – Congratulations!

MATS

Everybody in Sweden born in the 60s is named Mats. This one is unique though. The first time I met with him I was presenting a gate report in his project – “Hi, my name is Green and the gate is Red” was my opening statement in our long relationship. Mats and his team in R&D are now undergoing what I believe is the largest restructure since I joined the company. Everything is built on becoming fully agile and achieve a flow in the product output across the entire organization. It is a direct continuation of the agile transformation we started together in 2017 and will fix many of the flaws we made then and also fully align the line-structure to the agile set-up. I bow in respect to every leader and every individual in R&D. When we come out in the autumn after this, I am confident we have created the most modern car creation team in the world. Respect. 

I hope when this letter is written some years from now, by someone else, the names will be different. I see a group of upcoming, highly diverse talents within our team of Volvo-friends, and they will be there with the same dedication to people, their freedom to move, personal, sustainable and safe! 

Take care!

//Henrik 

Mentioned above:

Bj?rn Bringert leads Commercial Digital from autumn 2020

Ninna Aronsson leads Vehicle Architecture from autumn 2020

Mats Moberg leads of Research and Development

* CED = Consumer Enterprise Digital