Friday September 7 – Umeå

Today I was hosted in the city of Umeå for a full day of meetings.  Mr. Mats-Rune Bergström met myself and Anna Brozik at the airport to welcome us to the European Culture Capital of 2014. 

We began the day with the Vice-Chancellor of Umeå Univeristy, Ms. Lena Gustafsson.  The University is home to 36,000 students in 8 different schools.  Ms. Gustafsson shared her philosophy on research and development and the importance of long term thinking.  In fact, the university publication is titled just that – “Think, An Inquisitive Magazine from Umea University”.  In addition to the focus on innovation, the university is also focused on attracting more female professors.  Currently they have a mentoring program and a program in place attracting more female guest professors.  Dialog later in the day with other leaders at the university pointed to the fact that the students are looking for more female role models as professors and guest lecturers.

Umeå Art Campus

The next portion of the day was spent touring the Art Campus which includes the Umeå Institute for Design and the Umeå School of Architecture.  The focus was on design and innovation.  We met with several leaders taking the Institute in new directions.  Friday marked the end of the first week of school for new students.  Pictured below are several projects that teams of students built during the first week to demonstrate several design principles.  The focus on innovation and team work was evident as we watched the teams interact.  The School of Architecture was in the process of finalizing a Kinetic Machine which will be demonstrated to the Dean early next week. 

Umeå European Culture Capital of 2014

Ms. Marie-Louise Rönnmark, Chairman of the Municipal Council and Mr. Jan Björinge, CEO of the Umeå Municipality led a discussion on the cities’ path to the European Culture Capital of 2014.  We also discussed how the city of Umeå was the first city in Sweden to have child care for everyone and the first to offer adult education courses.  Marie-Louise’s perspective on why Sweden, and Umeå in particular, are seeing more women in leadership is the result of women are highly educated, a great social system is in place and the emphasis that gender diversity leads to good results for the economy. 

The city is currently focused on achieving the designation of European Culture Capital of 2014.  The campaign focuses on creating curiosity across the entire community and that culture stimulates curiosity.  Curiosity and innovation are in evidence across the city. 

Ms. Maud Olofsson

I then had the pleasure to dialog with Ms. Maud Olofsson, former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Enterprise and Energy.  Ms. Olofsson is also a member of Hillary Clinton’s International Council of Women Business Leadership and leader of the subteam focused on leadership.  Maud joined my visit for the majority of the day, emphasizing the importance networking and having established role models.  Maud has been at the forefront of women in leadership in all of her positions she has held.  In 2006 she started an education and training program for women on boards.  She is also the initiator of a program still in place aligning 200 women in a networking program.  Maud emphasized that results can happen, but it requires setting targets, measuring and holding leaders accountable to achieve. 

The International Council of Women Business Leadership subteam that Maud chairs is close to presenting final recommendations to the chair.  There are 4 key areas that the subteam found were critical for promoting more women leaders:  role models, mentoring, training and access to networks.  These ideas have emerged as common themes in the course of the last two weeks of my project focus.  In addition, Maud focused quite a bit on the need for industry and leaders to create work-life balance, which will continue to aid in the growth of women as leaders.

Dinner – Governor’s Residence, Province of Våsterbotten

Ms. Birgitta Heijer, Acting Governor of the Province of Våsterbotten, hosted dinner at the residence for the team of leaders who participated in my visit today.  It was wonderful to continue to the dialog from each of my meetings during a fabulous dinner.  This dinner was the culmination of my two week fellowship visit in Sweden and I couldn’t think of a better way to end the visit.  I was warmly welcomed and enjoyed the candid dialog by all related to my project goals, as well as leadership and where the town of Umeå is headed.

Umeå leaders were fabulous hosts, and they certainly put Umeå on the map for me.