This document discusses calibrating Nordic leadership in shifting business landscapes. It notes that talents are rare globally and in the Nordics. Nordic students may not be very international and could be captive to cultural stereotypes. It lists the top 10 attractive companies to Nordic business students, which do not include many international firms. Nordic culture is described as low power distance and people-oriented, but sometimes seen as indecisive or fuzzy. CEO interviews suggest future leaders need to be balanced, driven, inspiring, analytic, international, knowledgeable, and communicative. International companies could attract Nordic talents abroad and stimulate a more performance-based culture while enriching with Nordic approaches. The document ends by asking for other perspectives.

1. Calibrating Nordic Leadership in Rapidly
Shifting Business Landscapes
07.05.2015
Peter Zashev
Program Director, Adjunct Professor

2. Today
1. Viewpoint
2. The battle for talents: combining expectations and
performance
3. Nordic leadership in global context – perception by other
cultures
4. Consequences for our business
2

3. Hanken & SSE Executive Education
Executive programs for our customers’
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SSE ranked 2014 by Financial Times as
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Over ten years experience of working in
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With groundbreaking research and
teaching in e.g.:
 Finance and Accounting
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3
3
Stockholm School of Economics 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Business Schools 1 1 1 1 1
Executive Education general rank 1 1 1 1 1
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RANKINGS:
Baltic/Nordic Region

4. View point: Peter Zashev
4
5 years in Russia
20 years in Finland
Bulgarian Finn
Program Director
M.Sc. / Russia
PhD / Finland
Where I see emerging markets
talents
Adjunct Professor
Partner
IBS Group Ltd,
www.ibs-group.fi
__________________
Your new markets and sales!Where I see Nordic entrepreneurship &
Where I see present and future
Nordic business leaders

5. Talents: not much of them
5
6,7% of the world population (462mln) has a
degree (Huffington Post, 2010) (Vs 67% in Finland)
17% of the world population can’t
read

6. Talents: even less of them
6
- not everybody ends up in business
- not everybody wants to end up in the North
- Leadership as a combination of
- Professional skills
- Ambition (in the US only 1/3 of workers (34%) aspire to leadership positions, HBR 2014) (students in
Finland from 24% in 2010 to 46% in 2015 /Universum/)
- Attitude
- Interpersonal skills
…is actually a very rare quality!

7. What do talents expect from their
workplace?
7
• High level of responsibility and career
opportunities
• Purpose, vision and values
• Opportunity to develop
• Work-life balance
• Compensation and rewards do not
motivate, but they should be good enough
not to be demotivating
Nordic countries
Emerging markets
• Income
• Experience & learning
• Rapid career growth
• Achievements
• Recognition
In both:
in a growing, global start-up
culture, quite many like to
become entrepreneurs
We need them but
they may choose
among many other
destinations!
Being well educated
and linguistically
capable, they are not
very international!?

8. 3478
foreign companies in Finland
830
Swedish
450
US
317
German
Attracting local talent: your brand as an
employer
8
Nordic students are:
a) perhaps not so willing to get out of their “comfort zone” and be international! (10% of
engineering and 16% of business students in Finland demonstrate interest in an international
career)
b) might be captives of cross-cultural stereotypes
“Swedish: endless discussion
US: kill and die for success/performance
GERMAN: very hierarchical and bureaucratic / process oriented”
Result
The the top 10-listing of attractive companies for business students looks like this:
Kone * Nordea * Fazer * Finnair * Lóreal * OP * Lumene * MTV * Rovio * Microsoft (ex- Nokia)
Can we really speak of a considerable interest towards the international companies!?

9. Nordic business culture
Low power distance
Tolerant
Inclusive
Avoiding conflicts
People oriented
Factual decision makers
Indecisive
Fuzzy
Slow
Emotionless
Unhurried
How do we see
ourselves?
How are we
sometimes seen?

10. CEO interviews Finland
What are the expected characteristics
of top managers 2020?
10
Balanced
Handle stress,
carries responsibility
for well-being,
self-aware
Driven
Passion, attitude,
ambition, courage,
hard-working, hunger,
wants to be leader
Inspiring
People leadership;
across cultures and
generations,
getting people
omboard
Analytic
Insightful, dynamic,
ability for conceptual
thinking,
integrity
International
International
experience,
cultural
understanding,
language skills
Knowledgeable
Broad knowledge base,
educated, willing to
learn,
self-leadership
Communicative
Good communicators
easy to approach,
listening,
relation builder,
interpersonal skills
Leader
2020
More Assertive
More
Quicker

11. So what? More of everything
11
International companies in the North may have a big role and
impact when and if:
SERVE AS A STEPPING STONE
- attracting Nordic talents to international positions in their home countries
- offering Nordic talents more exposure to the new/emerging markets
- attracting international talents to the North
SERVE AS A CULTURAL BRIDGE
- stimulating and promoting more
performance based business culture
- enriching their own corporate culture
with more “Nordic” approach

12. Discussion
I shared my personal perspective!
What is yours?