-"For 19 years, you at Jula have successfully taken a Swedish family business to a large international retail chain and also broadened the business. You have also managed to maintain the strong corporate culture of the company. What is the secret of your success?

As always, there is not just one universal secret. For me, it has been important to be a good ambassador and to live the spirit of Christmas. I am a person driven by developing companies and people and I am curious to learn things I don't know and constantly strive to improve. I am also a competitive person who likes to win. I am also very much based on building a strong team with different employees who have different roles and strengths where we together form a strong team. I focus on what we can achieve and want to create the conditions for us to get there.

Jula is a fantastic company with many talented, committed and driven employees where we have built a culture that people enjoy working in. Where we strive to develop ourselves as individuals, our teams and our company for the benefit of our customers. Over the years, we have had the ambition to grow sustainably with profitability and to challenge ourselves and constantly grow. We are forward-looking and proactive and we try to see opportunities.

Jula is a family business and that means that it is not only numbers that count. To succeed as an external CEO in running a family business, it is important to be responsive and find ways to deliver the company and the corporate culture that is in the owners' vision. At Jula, I have had the privilege of working closely with one of (in my opinion) Sweden's most successful entrepreneurs Karl-Johan Blank. As CEO, no two days are ever the same and there are always activities to be done, actions to be taken, plans to be made, problems to be solved, communication with employees, owners, stakeholders, customers, etc. It's great fun. At Jula, we are also always commercial and see business and opportunity. We must never lose focus on why we exist.

As CEO of this fantastic group, it has been an incredibly fun and exciting journey where I have learned a lot and I hope that I have contributed to Jula being in the place where we are today. After 19 years at Jula, of which 10 years as CEO, I feel that it is a good time for both me and the company to start the next part of the journey. There is a time for everything, and I am curious about what I can contribute to other places than Jula with the experience and knowledge I have built up. 10 years as CEO is a long time, but it has been so fun, challenging and stimulating that it has been difficult to make the decision to leave.

-We now want to find my two successors. At Jula, it is important that we as leaders are good ambassadors and live the Jula spirit. Being driven by curiosity, commitment, responsibility and with a strong commercial focus and a constant desire to develop and improve is a prerequisite for success as CEO at Jula, Joachim points out.

- As we have previously worked with the executive search company Based On People (BOP) in several recruitments, we have given them the task of finding my two successors. Karl-Johan and Peder (owner and chairman of the board respectively) are now working with BOP to find the people who, together with about 4,000 employees, will continue to develop the Jula Group and realize all future plans. Need we add that these are two of Sweden's most fun and popular CEO jobs!

Want to know more? contact Eva.Holmgren@basedonpeople.se and Per.jerndahl@basedonpeople.se