Paul Gustavsson has over 20 years of experience in the automotive and OEM industries and can be said to be one of the first persons to start working with the electrification of cars at Volvo Cars in the early 2000s. Today he is CEO of Nordkalk, the leading producer and supplier of limestone-based products and solutions in Northern Europe. He has been involved in two ownership changes at Volvo Cars, the financial crisis in 2008 and now Covid. We have talked to Paul about his career, about leadership, and his view of the future.

With an early interest in the automotive industry, Arthur D. Little in Gothenburg was a great choice for Paul after he graduated from the Chalmers University of Technology. Here he worked with many suppliers, almost all car brands, with OEM market entry, purchasing strategies in Asia, cost rationalizations, and fuel consumption issues. An interesting project was when they analysed what makes a subcontractor successful and evaluated the 100 largest subcontractor companies in automotive in Sweden. Most profitable was a smaller sheet metal company that could boast a 25% margin. When you look closer at what made the company so successful, it turned out that the owner, who was a dedicated pilot, often flew to Gothenburg and visited Volvo with his prototypes. He discussed with his customer on-site and helped them solve their problems. Paul says that if you want to be successful, you need to make sure to solve your customers’ problems and help them save money.

You worked for 16 years at Volvo Cars in various roles and were involved in the start-up of the development of electric and hybrid cars. Tell us about your journey within the company.

“I started in the middle of the storm when Ford acquired Volvo. We were going to create a joint product development, but it was sometimes difficult to find common solutions in what we wanted or how we would do it. It was a difficult job. Then came the financial crisis of 2008 and a quarter of all employees on passenger cars were laid off. Four out of five floors in our office were empty, it was terrible. I had become responsible for the new investment in the electrification of vehicles. Vattenfall joined as a financier, and it went very well! These projects were actually one of the selling points when Ford sold Volvo to Geely. The technology we developed is still used today, albeit in a more modernized form. Our CEO at the time, the later CEO Stephen Odell, and the later CEO Stefan Jacoby, and not least Håkan Samuelsson were very proactive in the work with electrification, which facilitated a lot in the change process. “

“In order to have the right skills for this product development, we invested heavily in internal training, it was important that everyone understood the transition from fossil fuels to electricity/hybrid and was able to embrace the big change that this meant.”

“When we were acquired by Geely, I was given responsibility for the President’s Office, which meant the responsibility to anchor decisions between Volvo and Geely regarding, for example, development projects, governance, and investments. We created everything from scratch and laid the foundation for the platform that still runs within Volvo Cars.

I travelled to China a lot to see where we were going to open factories. It is great to see how this business has developed so strongly today. Right now, the Olympics have been held in one of the cities where we have production. At the time when we were planning to establish Volvo Cars there, it was a closed former military town in a sandpit landscape with large coal resources. They were looking for foreign investors and when we got there, they had arranged a huge event with several thousand people, orchestras, shows and more to welcome us. I enjoyed travelling in the country, we were well taken care of. The advantage of working with the Chinese is that they are very straight and clear, they make quick decisions and when you encounter obstacles, you solve them right away and adapt. The challenge is that sometimes there were abrupt changes.”

Tell us about your view of change leadership

“For me, it is important to lead honestly and openly and to be myself. I am transparent and I like to delegate – I want to know the details, but I do not micromanage, we solve the problems together. When you drive a big change, you need to repeat your messages over and over again. At Volvo, we handled the great crisis of 2008 very well with great respect for the employees. Everyone knew what was happening and why. Although we needed to make large layoffs, we got very good results in our personnel surveys. My leadership style has grown over the years. In the past, I was not delegating as much but wanted to have control over everything. I believe in delegating mandate and responsibilities, unleashing power, creativity, initiative, and, not least, pride. People want to deliver! I think you should be challenged; it does not matter if it goes wrong. I like to lift younger people, now, for example, I have brought in two new, more junior people, in my management team. They get the chance to grow, and we get new insights and perspectives. If you have not grown into the role, you get help and support.”

You are the Chairman of the Board of CPAC, which is one of Volvo’s innovation companies, tell us about the business

“CPAC is wholly owned by Volvo Group. We develop hardware and software for autonomous vehicles. Among other things, we have an automatic steering wheel that detects when there is a strong wind and can fend this off, backhoes that sense the weight of, for example, soil and can send reports directly to the computer system that produces invoices. We also have different types of control mechanisms for ships. Today, we have just under 200 employees who research and develop innovations. Our employees are given a large customer and project responsibility early on and are continuously trained. We are facing a huge skills shortage in engineering in Sweden and the competition with Asia is fierce, where huge sums are invested in a fast and modern education.”

What are your biggest challenges for the next 10 years to come?

“For Nordkalk, the health and safety of our employees is always the most important factor and a major challenge that we are constantly working with. In addition, sustainability issues are what we invest the most in and which we see as crucial for the future. We must constantly ask ourselves the question of how we can use our resources in a smarter way. You can always improve and streamline your production. Our sustainability challenges are mainly about emissions management as we produce a lot of carbon dioxide, and we work hard to improve it. Among other things, we sell limestone to steel mills which then clean their products with it. We can then in turn take back their waste products and sell them to other industries, this is called ‘return limestone.’  It is about developing smarter products and thinking circular economy.”

“Drinking water in southern Sweden is purified by Nordkalk’s burnt limestone.”

“I believe that all challenges in environmental issues will lead to more and more companies taking home parts of their production to control their emissions. Researching this is important, especially for Europe if we want to stay competitive. With only 3% of the world’s population, we need to monitor our competitiveness very closely.”

You have also been Group CEO at Britax, the world’s leading producer of car seats for children. What changes did you drive during your time there?

“When Nordic Capital, then the owner of Britax, bought one of our major competitors in China, we performed the integration of the companies, we closed down a factory in Australia and moved production to China. I benefited greatly from my previous experience in the Chinese market. During this time, we established online sales and digitized all communications, 60% of sales were online and Amazon was the largest customer. We renewed and harmonized the design of the car seat program, which led to reduced cost savings. We changed most of the global management team and implemented a major change project within the working culture.”

Since 2019, you are CEO of Nordkalk, active in limestone-based products, how come you switched to a completely new industry?

“I had never set foot in a mine before but thought it sounded very exciting when I was contacted. The assignment was, among other things, to drive change programs, cost reductions, create clarity and address organizational issues. We have run a large productivity program where we looked at almost all processes resulting in 350 action points. We cut 18% of the workforce and developed new ways of working and reporting. Overall, the productivity improvement has led to significantly higher margins. Covid has not affected us as much as we do not have many subcontractors but manage our mines ourselves. Our customers continue to need our products. The challenge and priority one has been the health of our staff and preventing the spread of infection. Other challenges that we have are within the permit for mines and it is not affected by the economic cycle or the pandemic.”

How has it worked to lead the organization during Covid?

“Our largest staff group works in production and cannot work from home, so we have focused on safety and reducing the spread of infection. The biggest challenge has been to lead and govern those who have worked from home. In general, leadership is about giving people responsibility and mandate and allowing them to make their own decisions. Delegated leadership is the key to creating energy and creativity. I am proud of how all Nordkalk’s staff and organization have worked and developed the company during the strained pandemic”

“I believe in delegating powers and responsibilities, then you unleash power, creativity, initiative, and not least pride. People want to deliver!”

Describe your leadership in 5 points:

• Delegated responsibility is linked to clear goals and expectations
• Show a clear direction and strategy – everyone needs to know what our purpose is
• Respect
• Curiosity
• Frequent communication

Leading an international company involves a lot of responsibility and a lot of work, how do you recover?

“Luckily, I can mentally easily switch between work and leisure. I enjoy spending time with my family in our country holiday home, to train and hunt. I see every work lunch as an opportunity to meet a person, it brings both intellectual stimulation and joy.”

What are your 4 best career tips?

• Be yourself, do not try to be someone else. People will see through you
• Help your manager and make sure he/she gets support, then you will get more responsibility and confidence
• Choose your employer and manager, if it does not work, look for a different place or role
• Dare to question and test new ideas. It is better to apologize than to ask for permission!