You were CEO for one month at Adecco Group last summer, and got to try out being a top manager. What insights and experiences did you take with you from that period?

Wow, where to start? The time at Adecco was very rewarding and offered many new and instructive insights. Working with the Nordic CEO Torben Sneve and seeing how he professionally managed to combine complex issues with high presence and a close relationship with the employees taught me a lot about the leadership that I am convinced is the future. It was also very exciting to learn about Adecco's broad client portfolio and its wide geographical spread, where adapting to each client is important in order to meet their specific needs. Although Adecco is a large international company with many established routines, both services and working methods differ depending on the specific client, where a client in a small town in northern Sweden, for example, places completely different demands on us than a larger company in one of Sweden's major cities.

Another very rewarding element was my participation in the global CEO final in Germany. Together with nine candidates from all corners of the world, I qualified for a boot camp where we were challenged with various tests, cases and collaboration exercises over three intensive days. Getting to grips with complex issues and finding new solutions to global challenges in a short space of time was tough at times, but the reward of seeing how we ten strong and driven candidates with different backgrounds and experiences came together as a powerful team despite the competition was really cool! Humility, inspiration and the ability to see and lift each other were qualities that I felt we all possessed, which are also important elements of what I believe constitutes future leadership!

As you are relatively young, the Corona crisis is your first experience of global social crisis. How do you feel about this challenging situation?

To say the least, everyday life has taken a turn for the worse in recent months. Of course, the situation is very complex and we still face many challenges and problems, but at the same time it is becoming increasingly clear how Covid19 has also brought new opportunities and an extremely rapid change towards the future. You only have to look back four months and try to remember the plans for the future that existed then and compare them to today's reality - it's almost chilling to see how your perception of the world has changed so drastically in such a short time!

There have been many advances in the digital arena and more and more people are now realizing the opportunities this can bring. However, working and leading remotely is a challenge and places completely new demands on both leaders and other employees and, in my opinion, it has become increasingly clear which leaders are up to the task and not now that work is done remotely. In addition, the importance of social interactions and the human factor has become even more evident - technological advances and changes can take us a long way, but it is only when people are involved in these processes that the great wonders can be achieved!

How will we need to lead businesses when the world presses the 'start' button again - what will characterize the 'new' leadership?

As I mentioned earlier, I believe that the new leadership will be characterized by the ability to manage soft values, values that have unfortunately often suffered in the past. The image of a controlling leader who points with his whole hand is outdated and instead I both believe in and am inspired by a leadership based on trust and the ability to listen, include and inspire.