#025 Pia Huusfelt, Global Business Leader at IKEA - Glorious Future! - a podcast by Ann Hiatt

Pia Huusfelt leads Circular Innovation and Transformation at INGKA Group, which includes designing future circular business models for IKEA.

Her work as the Global Business Leader at IKEA is focused on human-centered design and innovation, exploring and testing ideas iteratively to quickly learn and adjust practices.

In this interview you will hear how Pia leads her teams through the unknown. This leadership style requires agile methodology including sprints, self-managing teams and high adaptability - which are all themes we get into in this interview.

As you will hear, Pia has had a rich and non-linear career path which is incredibly inspiring.

-Her first job was as a PA in the fishing industry, where she learned the foundations of business thanks to her CEO mentor.

-She then moved on to telemarketing in banking, where she took a creative and innovative approach to marketing

- Pia and I talk about how she’s never had a formal career plan, but is able to retrospectively connect the dots for how these roles prepared her to be the executive she is today.

A theme that really stood out to me was how she leads her teams at IKEA by creating thoughtful structure in order to channel their creativity.

-In her team, they engage in short, 3 week sprint cycles where the individuals decide which projects they want to take on. This works for them because of how aligned they are!

Pia also discusses some of her best practices for new and creative ways of working together and connecting throughout the pandemic, such as walking meetings and even remote scavenger hunts. This team really knows how to make work fun!

We wrap up our conversation talking about how she feels the Scandinavian DNA queues them up for success. Oh, and her vision for a GLORIOUS FUTURE!

Her enthusiasm is infectious. I think you’re really going to enjoy this one!

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