Mr Anders Gustafsson, Senior Vice President EMEA at Volvo Cars, was one of the keynote speakers at the annual leadership conference of the Association of Senior Executives, held last week, with Volvo as a major sponsor. This year's 28th edition of the EASE conference was a great success, with more than 500 chairmen, executive directors or chief executive officers and senior company executives attending. The conference was entitled "Ambidextrous Leadership in a Paradoxical World" and was dedicated to the ambidexterity that must distinguish the modern leader to be effective and successfully deal with the paradoxes in the day-to-day life of the organisation he or she leads.
In his presentation, the Vice President of Volvo Cars talked about how a leader can create a culture of ambidexterity in an organisation, giving examples from within the world of Volvo. His speech highlighted the value of human resources for a company. As he pointed out "the strength of companies is their people and when they work as a team this strength does not add up but multiplies. In this process the role of the leader, who is called upon to inspire, direct and organize his team, is catalytic".
Elsewhere in his presentation, Gustafsson stressed that "the goal of the leader is to create the right environment for team members to make the right decision at the right time. It's all about a culture that encourages transparency and gives company members the comfort to be creative and feel comfortable even questioning situations when they think they are not right. Ultimately, a passion for quality, for customer satisfaction, for responsibility to the brand and to the community is not something that is imposed but is cultivated in team members as an overall philosophy. And in this, the ambidextrous leader is called upon to play a primary role."
In support of this, Mr Gustafsson referred to Vision 2020, Volvo's public commitment that by 2020 it will have developed all the technology needed to ensure that there is no loss of life or serious injury in any accident involving a Volvo model. "Vision 2020 is a public commitment that was made by the company's president, but it is now part of the whole philosophy of all employees, it is a shared vision that everyone in the company serves to make it happen," he said emphatically.
On the sidelines of the conference, Gustafsson commented on Volvo Cars' performance in the European market in the first quarter of 2017: "Volvo Cars' growth plan continues unabated this year. We recorded a strong first quarter of sales in EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) with an increase of 9% compared to the same period last year, with the increase for March alone being 14%, with registrations of 37,200 cars. Similarly high is the increase in the order book, with 20,000 additional orders compared to the same period in 2016, which is reflected in the increase in Volvo's market share, now almost 2% in Europe. This success is a component of the individual sales records Volvo has set during this period in many important national markets."
The conference, whose major sponsor was Volvo, took place on 5-6 May 2017 at the Grand Resort Lagonissi with the participation of renowned speakers from Greece and abroad who shared their knowledge and experiences with the participants. Among them Mrs. Wendy Smith, professor at the University of Delaware, USA, who is among the world's elite scientists specializing in strategic paradoxes and Itay Talgam, former conductor and now a successful consultant to global giants, who gave a different twist to the conference, likening the leader to the fine conductor of a symphony orchestra who faces the ultimate leadership challenge of creating perfect harmony without saying a word.
Anders Gustafsson was born in 1968 in Sweden. Educated in Sweden, Europe, the USA and China, he first took over as CEO at the age of 32.
Today, as Senior Vice President of Volvo Cars, he leads the company's activities in the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East, Africa), with responsibility for over 60 countries.
