Victoria Widén

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

ABOUT VICTORIA WIDÉN

Why? ‘Why?’ is a brilliant question. You can get far by only having that in your tool box, asking yourself and others why, repeatedly and all the time. Why do customers buy our product? Why do we have this strategy? Why is competition successful? Why are we? Why should people follow me if I cannot explain WHY we are doing what we are doing? And of course, why should you employ me as your next leader? To answer that one last pertinent question: I’m a leader by profession and personality, who has found my leadership style in asking the right questions, promoting learning and development in my team members by making the ‘why’ behind our joint actions crystal clear! This helps them find relevance in their contribution to team results and confidence in their decision making. I am skilled at engaging teams and steering them through volatile times and rapidly changing circumstances. I present a calm sense of purpose and a compassionate nature paired with determination and drive. I am a good coach who instills trust and can motivate myself and others. I view leadership as an enabling service function. Things I am proud of in my work-life and privately, in no specific order, are: Developing a tailormade cable transit seal for telecom base stations that is now successfully sold worldwide. Giving birth to two spectacular children. Increasing the scores for ‘Leadership’ and ‘Strategy’ by 25 percentage points in the OSRAM Insights-survey during my first year as country leader. Being promoted to management after only 10 weeks in my first job. My university degrees. Having the courage to get divorced. My 12 month adventurous solo world trip. Being nominated for the Swedish Publishing Prize for the book I co-authored about the 100 years of OSRAM local industrial heritage. My ability to handle difficult conversations. Designing and building my own home. Turning loss to profit as area sales manager. Mentoring a brilliant young woman in a charity program for immigrant youth. In addition: My English is perfect, my German passable, I have an excellent understanding of Danish and Norwegian and I’m reasonably tech savvy. I am passionate about family, work, bringing order to chaos, positively influencing people, restoring old things, finding the beauty in - and alternative uses for – everyday objects, being a good friend, learning new things, reading, Italy, wine, interior and exterior design, and if I didn’t have a successful corporate career I would most certainly run my own “Fixer Upper” business. That’s why!