Our meeting with Björn Rosengren

Every time Björn Rosengren started a sentence with “Let me tell you a story …”, you could see a big smile on everyone’s face.

To start off 2021 in the best way possible, we got the opportunity to virtually meet Björn Rosengren, President and CEO of ABB. All trainees were very excited and expectant. We spent a long time carefully drafting our questions for him and during our meeting not only did he answer all our questions, he also invited us along on a journey of all kinds of stories and anecdotes that fascinated us all.

The journey took us from Sweden to all kinds of places around the world. Other than taking us on a geographical journey, his stories took us from project management and sales to responsibilities of divisions, business areas as well as being the CEO of global corporations. Whether the journey was of a geographical kind or if it was between different roles there was one word that frequently recurred as a keyword, and that was decentralize. This was not a surprise, but rather something that we had looked forward to hearing more about. It was inspiring to hear about his views on matrix organizations and the experience Björn has of the effect of transferring authority and responsibility to lower levels in the organizational hierarchy.

As the ABBers we are, we were also delighted when we got to hear about what he appreciated with the company and what the strategy is going forward. Something that also interested me greatly was when he spoke about ABB’s work with electric vehicle charging infrastructure and that the company is a world leader when it comes to EV charging. For me, sustainable technology is close at heart and I think that it is fascinating that ABB is on the forefront of this and has a vision to lead the way to a low emission mobility future.

Furthermore, we got to listen to how important the entrepreneurial drive is, what it is like to work in different cultures and the importance of self-awareness. At the end of our conversation, Björn spoke about sustainability, which is something that is of great interest to my trainee colleagues and me. We could have listened and asked questions for hours, but unfortunately reality called. After the meeting with Björn, I was so inspired and full of energy that I had to write about our meeting.

Thank you Björn for the wisdom you shared and the energy you gave!