Member Highlight - Alana Gordon

Alana Gordon Former Board Member of the ABCS & Partner at Swedish Frames

Alana Gordon is a former Board Member of the ABCS and a longtime contributor to the group's community.

Since arriving in Sweden in 2010, she's consulted for several Swedish brands like IKEA, Scania and Ericsson, helping them create new and sustainable digital experiences.

We recently sat down over a zoom call to speak about her time in Sweden, experiences with the ABCS and what the next chapter in her career holds:

How did you end up in Sweden and in contact with the ABCS?

I left Melbourne in 2003 to move to Scotland. I enjoyed working there for six years, and then I decided to come to Sweden for a holiday. What I had planned to be a six-month stay turned into 13 years.

In 2017 I was approached by one of the ABCS' current members to come along to a wine tasting at the ambassador's house. I thought, how could I refuse that! After our first glasses of wine, everyone was asked to stand up and present themselves. This made it easy to meet people and gave the meeting a professional atmosphere; I knew it was a group that I'd like to associate with. 

Since your time on the ABCS board has recently ended, do you have reflections about the term and what you enjoyed about the experience?

The term with the ABCS was a great experience. I really enjoyed adding value to the organisation by taking an outside-in approach, using in member surveys and in-person interviews to find out what our members and corporate partners appreciated most and then working to give it to them.

There were also some challenges to overcome during my tenure, namely the restrictions caused by the pandemic. This caused a shift in how we operated; moving some of our events online, but this helped to expand our reach and attracted new members in Malmo and Götenberg.

From my own perspective, I really appreciated the high-level connections I took from the position. Interacting directly with the ambassador, embassy and other high profile organisations in both Sweden and Australia that help facilitate professional exchange between the two countries has been great for expanding my own professional network.

Having served as a senior leader in several Nordic companies, what would you say to Aussies new to these types of business interactions?

While it's important to respect the Swedish work culture, it's not all about trying to fit in. Australians new to Sweden have a lot to offer with their international experience so adding complementary insight and skill sets to the mix is a benefit for companies. Also, almost everyone appreciates a good Aussie sense of humour.

Last year you took a new position with Swedish Frames; what drew you to this opportunity?

I've been working with digital transformation and content creation for most of my career, helping businesses to create experiences that are market-leading and exceed customer expectations. My passion lies in the innovation and convergence of new technologies and I’m always looking for ways to make the world a better experience using the best in future tech.

When I came across Swedish Frames, it was clear they were so at the forefront of this space, Building applications in virtual reality, 3D and the metaverse in order to deliver the most beautiful visual experiences unlike anything else out there. 

A good example was last year, Swedish Frames made a 3D model for one of Scania's new truck engines. It was fully interactive, and users could spin it around and see it from all angles - inside and out. Something that would be impossible in real life. 

I started in a consultancy role with the company, but loved them so much I became a partner at the end of last year.

Anything else about the company you'd like ABCS members to know?

I would really love to collaborate with people from the network with the services offered by Swedish Frames. For any business wanting to bring the wow-factor to their brands, it's worth looking into Swedish Frames to see what is possible to create.

We will also be releasing a new product at the end of this Summer, a platform that allows anyone to create professional virtual events regardless of their experience level. It's perfect for our members that work in the B2B space and will be available for both VR and normal devices.

Call for Board Member Nominations

As we get kicked off with 2022 and some of the changes we hope it brings, we will also have a change to our Board membership as we say goodbye to 3 members who have completed their terms with the Council; Alana Gordon (Corporate Relations), Manny Maloney (General Counsel), and Sophia Skinbjerg (Marketing). Hiba Larsson (Vice Chair of Finance) will be ending her term early as she has taken an exciting opportunity and moved to Abu Dhabi.

2021 was a challenging year in some ways, with the pandemic dragging on until summer and then resurgence over winter. But we are proud of what the Board has achieved and hope that our members have appreciated the benefits in terms of networking and professional events!

We believe that 2022 is going to be year of resurgence for the Council’s social activities, with some great opportunities and events. As a member of the Board, you can help us to build on the network and continue to offer excellent events and opportunities for our members.

How to submit a nomination

Each Board position is for a term of 2 years. Applicants with good corporate networks, communications or events experience, and a bias for being proactive are particularly encouraged to apply.

To submit a nomination, send an email to sean.williams@australianbusiness.se with the following information:

Full name and contact number

  • CV

  • LinkedIn profile

  • ABCS membership status

  • A short description of your interest in being on the Board

Please submit your nomination by February 18th, 2022.

Preferred candidates will be contacted by email or phone for interview. The final shortlist of candidates will be circulated to the wider membership base prior to the Annual General Meeting where voting will occur.

The 2022 Annual General Meeting will be held online on March 22nd, 2022 from 17:15CET. Details including the Zoom link will be sent to members in the coming weeks.

If you have any further questions regarding board membership, don't hesitate to reach out to me via email.

Regards,

Sean Williams Chairman of the Board
Australian Business Council Sweden

Submission regarding Australian National and State Border Controls related to COVID 19 and the Way Forward

In response to our recent submission to Parliament regarding the Australian National and State Border Controls related to COVID 19 and the Way Forward, we received a response from Prime Minster Scott Morrison.

He states that re-opening international borders is critical for Australian Business and that the Government is committed to growing two-way trade and deepening the economic ties between Australia And Europe.

Read the full response here.

NZ Pies

The ABCS is excited to announce our newest Small Business Sponsor, NZ Pies!

When Tom Simpson left the shores of New Zealand and came to Sweden, he, just like the rest of us antipodeans, really missed sinking his teeth into a delicious hot pie. Whether he was at a festival, a sporting event, or looking for a quick quality bite to eat at home, a decent pie was nowhere to be found. And that’s when Tom decided something had to be done. So, he launched NZ Pies. His pies can now be found in all major supermarket chains across Sweden (including Coop, ICA and ICA Maxi) as well as served hot in pubs across the country. Help us celebrate his success by enjoying his story, and treating our taste-buds to arguably one of the best pies in Sweden.

Tom Simpson | www.nzpies.com

When you come from a land down under, either the big island or the smaller one beside it, both the Aussies and Kiwi’s can agree we all grew up with the privilege of good food, fresh ingredients and multicultural influences that gave us all a refined appreciation for quality cuisine - which extends beyond a mouth watering Pavlova - we’re pretty sure that comes from the big island, right Tom?

Anyway, we might not be able to agree on who has the best rugby team or who owns Russell Crowe, but the Australians might just have to eat their hats when it comes to who makes the best pies. When Tom came to Sweden in 2011 he missed a good pie as much as the rest of us. With his education in food science and agriculture combined with his passion for food, he decided it was time to put his talents to use and not just bake a pie, but challenge the entire Swedish constitution of Taco Tuesday and start a new food revolution - damn good pies for the people. Thus was born the brand NZ Pies, made here in Sweden. (Lucky for us, Tom’s Mum was born and raised in Melbourne, so we’ll just claim him as our own too).

Putting the banter aside, we are truly glad to have NZ Pies as a corporate sponsor of the ABCS. At our summer event Tom was generous enough to donate a few pies to our raffle, and trust us, once you’ve tasted an NZ Pie, you’ll never visit another korvkiosk again.

We spoke to Tom to find out how he identified the pie-hole in the Swedish market (pardon the pun) and his secret ingredients to not only launch a successful product, but to introduce a cultural change by leveraging the comforts from home.

Tom, start by telling us a bit about you.

I grew up in Christchurch, New Zealand and had a fairly standard upbringing based around school and sport (rugby took up most of my time but I played plenty of cricket too). I played rugby in the front row, loved eating and studying science. Thereby it came pretty naturally that I ended up doing a Food Science degree at Lincoln University, where I was also fortunate enough to attain a sports scholarship.

From food and sport in New Zealand, how did Sweden pop-up on your radar?

Upon completion of a Bachelor’s degree I progressed in postgraduate study and met Victoria. Victoria was then on exchange from SLU (Uppsala) as a part of her Master’s degree in Food Science. We shared an office with a few other Swedish and French students. A long story short, stars aligned and we were soon a couple. Rugby took us to the north island where I played for Hawke’s Bay in the National Provincial Championship. Unfortunately, a neck injury ended my career prematurely.

Excessive energy meant that I wasn’t much good at sitting still and took up competitive track & road cycling (a contrast from rugby and a 30 kg drop in bodyweight). At the same time Victoria and I worked together in the food industry and we went full circle going back to work with agricultural science at Lincoln Uni.

At the end of 2011 we moved to Sweden beginning in Eskilstuna (Victoria’s home town).

NZ Pies was launched 4 years later. How did you make your dream a reality?

After 2 months I began work as a Research Engineer at Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan in Stockholm (doing nerdy stuff). After a year or two I was back in the private sector working in b2b sales with a food startup. Commuting to Stockholm and travelling around Sweden/Europe was fairly grinding and this meant my next stop was Norrköpings Kommun as a Food Inspector. By this point we had moved to Forssjö so it was short drive south to Norrköping. Forssjö is located 5km south of Katrineholm and we are still living there now.

In October 2015 I resigned and started working full-time on my dream to bring really damned good pies to Sweden. As anyone moving to Sweden from an Anglo Saxon country would tell you it was traumatic for a pie eater living here. I had worked part-time at the family bakery all through school and university, working with pastries and learning the dark arts of baking pies. As a Food Scientist with industry experience and a competitive streak I figured I was well equipped to give it a crack.

It was a challenge given that there was no market for pies at the time and the startup costs were ominously large. As with most entrepreneurial endeavours things started off small and we were able to sublease a commercial kitchen on weekends. We imported the equipment required to start, rebuilt my garage into a freezer facility and off we went. Bake all weekend, sell pies all week long. Repeat ad infinitum.

Things went very quickly and before long we had set up the logistics required to ship nationwide and export (our first regular customers were based in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Finland). Very quickly our production capacity needed to grow and we signed the lease for pie factory 1.0, an empty newly built 150 m2 facility in Katrineholm. This got rebuilt according to our specifications and kitted out as best as we could afford. Since then we have expanded and upgraded constantly to meet our requirements. A fun journey that never really stops.

How did you create a market for something that didn’t exist?

No one simple answer here to be honest. We had the technical background to make the production work (in terms of product development/production management, quality assurance and conformance to legislation) so we just needed to concentrate on building a following and offering a product that people would love. Pies that I eat myself (I have a self-imposed limit of 3 pies per day). Quality has always been our focus as opposed to being a low price player. In terms of flavours we have an open mind and like being innovative. We love trying things that expats maybe wouldn’t see as classic “meat pies”. We develop all our flavours in-house. Investing in good plant has been critical to our business as we have grown.

From early days when we were very reliant on direct b2c sales we have transitioned to being a wholesale supplier. We are always mindful to keep to the formula that has brought us here; that is a great product and huge passion for what we do. If we don’t love our pies and what we stand for then nobody else will either. It is a huge task and long journey so one must remember to be patient. As they say: Behind every overnight success there is at least 10 year’s hard work!

What does the future hold for NZ Pies and our hungrily awaiting stomachs?

For the future we will continue building and spreading our passion for NZ Pies. Australia can have Russell Crowe and Crowded House but we will retain pies and pavlova, ok?

Submission regarding Australian National and State Border Controls related to COVID 19 and the Way Forward

The Federal Government’s policy on border controls has been identified as a business critical issue by our Members.

Together with 19 organisations representing Australian and Australian-interested organisations across Europe, we made a submission to the Australian Government addressing the commercial and professional career related (rather than personal) impacts of Australia’s policy framework on border controls.

Bilateral business relations between Australia and Europe, and Australia’s reputation, have suffered significantly as a result of the Australian policies. Significant effort will be required to mend the damage done.

Our submission provided empirical input, relevant experiences and suggestions from the members and associates of bilateral business associations operating between Australia and Europe for consideration as the Government considers adapting its future policy on border controls.

In summary, we made the following recommendations to the Australian Government relating to this matter:

  • Provide certainty on the reopening policy framework as soon as possible

  • Abolish quarantine and removal of caps for fully vaccinated or immune (recovered) people or PCR-tested arrivals similar to the UK and EU easing.

  • Seek to replicate the current operation of the European health passport which is now allowing free travel between Schengen nations.

  • Ensure entry from each country is governed by objective reasoning (eg any preference of entry to USA citizens over European citizens will lead to further questioning of Australia’s commitment to trade with Europe also noting the impact from the French submarine cancellation).

  • Implement an “open for business” campaign similar to the current ‘’open for education’’ campaign.

We are happy to share the full submission document to our Members.

Download: Submission regarding Australian National and State Border Controls related to COVID 19 and the Way Forward

SAAB Experience Center

On October 12, 2021, the ABCS invited our Members to visit Saab industries global HQ in Stockholm for an immersive and interactive experience into world-leading products, services and solutions from military defence.

Members were presented with an audio-visual presentation highlighting Saab’s state-of-the-art technologies, including aeronautics, advanced weapon systems, command and control solutions and submarines.

Afterwards, Dean Rosenfield, Saab’s Chief Marketing Officer, a graduate from Canberra’s Royal Military College, Duntroon, gave an informative personal talk about Saab and his career with them. Given Saab’s large footprint in Australia, via both submarines and civil aviation traffic management systems this was an outstanding opportunity to understand the close defence supply links between Sweden and Australia.

He touched upon the recent changes to Australia’s submarine program, and talked about the background to the decision and its future implication.

Are you interested in attended great events like this in future? Become a Member to recieve exclusive invites.

New policy framework regarding travel to, from and within Australia

After feedback from a number of Members and Colleagues, the issue of Australian border controls is clearly an important and topical area. As the Federal Government considers reversing its ''Zero Covid'' strategy, the Australian Business Council of Sweden (ABCS), together with Australian Business in Europe (ABIE) are seeking to provide input into the new policy framework regarding travel to, from and within Australia.

We understand a number of Australians living overseas have had family and other personal issues arising from Australia's policy. However, to maximise the impact and inline with the remit of the Australian Business in Europe (ABIE) network, the priority will be highlighting the business and career related impact of Australia's policy with a particular focus on the potential short, mid and longer term commercial impacts. Specifically we are seeking your opinion on how Australia's policies impact the economic and reputation of Australia, and also your input into the following areas:

  • Impact on those living, working and/or running companies which span Australia and Europe

  • Perception of Australia as a destination for investment or employment

  • Recommendations on how restrictions should be eased

Important: Click the button below and complete the questionnaire to submit your feedback. Answers via other methods will not be accepted. Please note, input to the ABIE submission will be anonymised unless you expressly authorise otherwise.

Deadline for input: 26 September 2021.

September Social

The Swedish summer may be nearing an end, but there is still so much to enjoy during the crisp Autumn days. Ambient homes bolstered by candle light, cozy nights in, the acceptably late crayfish party and of course, the ABCS September social mingle.

On 9th of September the ABCS invited our Members and friends to enjoy an in-person social event at Sue Ellen in Stockholm. The event was attended by existing Members and about half a dozen non-Members who were curious about joining our network. Snacks were provided and everyone had a very enjoyable evening in the outdoor beer garden, warmly heated by infrared heating and good company.

Be sure to not to miss our upcoming events by subscribing to our email list or become a Member today to be invited to exclusive events.

Member Highlight - Hiba Larsson

Hiba Larsson is the first official Swedish Board Member for the Australian Business Council of Sweden. She spent 5 years in Australia, and on her return to Sweden in 2020 she was keen to stay involved with the Australian community. We did a flash 5-question interview to find out what bonds her to Australia and her impression of the Aussie culture.

What was your original inspiration for moving to Australia?

I was one of those love refugees, haha. It was also an opportunity to embark on a life changing adventure, how could I turn it down?

So you fell in love with our people, and thereafter our country. As a Swede, what is your overall impression of the Australian country and culture?

Having spent four years in the UK prior to moving to Australia, I was expecting it to be quite similar. To my surprise, I felt it was more like Sweden (!): people really value life balance, friends & family, being out in nature and have, similar to Sweden, an incredible food scene. I have to admit though, the coffee is slightly better in Aus.

Starting from scratch, not knowing anyone professionally, I was positively overwhelmed by people’s willingness to support and connect. I also found it incredibly refreshing with the Aussie directness and no-nonsense mentality.

Overall, it was an incredible experience that I’ll always be grateful for.

When you returned to Sweden you wanted to keep a connection to Australia. How did you find the ABCS?

I had a few dealings with the former Australian Senior Trade and Investment Commissioner in the UK who introduced me to the ABCS and I turned up at one of the events having been ‘homesick’ and missing the Aussie banter. Not only did it cure my Aussie social craving but it also turned out to be a great network professionally meeting people in my area of profession.

After a year of Membership I was asked to join the Board.

You have an incredibly interesting and purpose-driven profession within the Agriculture sector. Please tell us a bit more about your professional background.

I started off working in finance but after being given the book ‘Feeding Freenzy’ by the cofounder for the company I was working for, which painted quite a daunting picture of the world’s future food supply/demand imbalance,. it elicited an incredible journey of discovering agriculture and I decided to devote my career within that field.

Over the years I’ve had the great opportunity of combining my experience in finance and working directly with farmers, and am now dedicated to working on opportunities focused on sustainable food production, including in Australia.

Finally, we have to ask: What is your favorite thing about Australia/Australians?

It’s like asking a mother who her favorite child is, too many things...and I think we’ve run out of time for this interview. You’ll have to ask me at our next ABC event!

If you work with Agriculture and you’d like to connect with Hiba you can find her on LinkedIn or come along and meet her and other ABCS Members in person at the next ABCS Event.

ABCS 2021 Summer Mingle

In June, the ABCS held our annual Summer Mingle. It was an in-person meet-up in the outdoor beer garden at Munchen Bryggeriet in Stockholm. It was a great networking event which was attended by around 30 ABCS Members and friends.

Drinks and snacks were provided, and to sprinkle the event with a flavour of down under, our neighbourly friends at NZ pies provided some tasty treats which were raffled off to a few lucky winners via our true-blue pub raffle.