In September last year, Jens Henriksson was appointed CEO and President of Folksam. He had already developed an extensive managerial background, working for some of the largest financial institutes in Sweden, and brought a wealth of knowledge and experience to the role.
Since taking up his position, Jens has been seeking to modernise the well-established insurance company by implementing new processes and technology. He recently caught up with The CEO Magazine to look at the changes hes implemented so far and what the future has in store for Folksam.
The CEO Magazine: Can you give our readers an overview of your professional background?
Jens: I have an engineering and economics degree from Lund University. I spent 12 years in government in different positions; in the last of which for four years I was responsible for economic policy and international affairs at the Ministry of Finance. After that I worked for Bruegel, the European think tank. While there I wrote a booklet on how to do budget consolidation. It was a commercial failure; not a single copy was sold. But once or twice a year somebody from the Ministry of Finance or Prime Ministers office calls me to ask for advice.
After that [Bruegel], I was recruited by the current Swedish government and the Swedish central bank to join the IMF [International Monetary Fund]. I was then on the board of IMF and I had the fortune/misfortune of representing, among others, Iceland and Latvia, two countries that during my tenure applied for assistance from the IMF. After that I was recruited by NASDAQ OMX, working for them in the US. I then moved back to Sweden and I worked a short time for Swedbank and after that at NASDAQ OMX as the head of the Stockholm stock exchange for three years. And then I was recruited to my present position as CEO of Folksam.