Is anyone here?

Have 2 years gone by already? How funny to think I would have had the time to update this blog with all the things happening since I arrived!

For those who don’t already know, I spent 7 months living in a hotel, with a kitchenette not big enough to cook a full meal, so I ended up eating out almost every night. The biggest shock to my system and to my brain was the amount of salt they used in every meal! For a society who prides themselves with eating healthy, organic, and ‘clean’, they clearly don’t mind the nasty effects of salt overdose! I literally got headaches from the huge amount of salt in my body. I wanted to just soak myself in a bathtub in hopes the salt would ooze out through my pores. It was really an insanefully unhealthy start of my life here!

To top it off, it was my first experience with the cold, dark, windy, and wet winters that the south of Sweden are famous for. Although, I shoudn’t have been surprised and after awhile, it was comforting, as it reminded me a bit of Vancouver (home!) and London (second home!)

After 7 months of hotel hell (The More Hotel), where luckily I had a 2 week break at home for Christmas, I finally found a place in the center of Old Town, in the same building as my boss (!). A beautiful corner flat on the top floor of a newly renovated building, just 6 minute walk to the train station. It’s the perfect location – still central, but away from the weekend drinking of the downtown core. It was to be a great place to create a home but then life threw me a curve ball and now the home is more silent than the hygge that I was hoping to create.

Fast forward to today. After a mind-boggling restructuring within the New Business and Innovation team of which Yasu had brought me halfway across the world to be a part of, a crazy hot summer (2018), the ‘completion’ of our mandate as the new Co-Create IKEA team, and of course some personal ‘challenges’ and family ‘events’, I am still here… in my little castle, post 2 years of 1.5 hour commutes to the dark forest where you’d find the heart of IKEA (Älmhult). I am on a new journey, after crossing over to the dark side – to INGKA, IKEA’s Retail Franchisee arm – I am essentially co-leading the Innovation team, managing the Co-Create Programme, and am the Matrix Responsible for the Innovation Leads for all 25 countries around the world.

I have been part of this team for about 3.5 months now and we are a small team of 7, soon to be 9, which means of course, our roles and responsibilities will change yet again.

There is so much to share as I have been MIA for over 2 years! I’ve been tossing around the idea of turning this into a podcast instead, but most likely that’ll happen in the summer. In the meantime, I AM BACK! and I hope to hear more from all of you!

Missing you all dearly in the dead of Swedish winter! xo

Älmhult, Co-Create, IKEA, Innovation, NB&I, Train, Work, Yasu