“At the end of my engineering studies, I ended up a trainee at the paper mill in Sweden, which at the time belonged to Stora – an old, very traditional paper company,” says Lennart Eberleh, CEO of Rottneros. It was the first position in a career that would see Lennart advance to the pinnacle of roles in the paper pulp industry.
Lennart stayed with the company over many years and in many roles, including as an internal productivity improvement consultant and in marketing and sales, before joining the management team of the new parent company, BillerudKorsnäs.
In this role, Lennart “led the transformation of the containerboard business from purely selling paper to corrugators around the world into also looking at how we could develop ourselves further down the supply chain, and we started actually selling packaging solutions to brand owners.”
The road to Rottneros
This was a plan that started in Asia, specifically China, Vietnam and Bangladesh. It wasn’t long before Lennart’s achievements led him to Rottneros, a supplier of high-quality paper pulp.
“In early 2016, I got in contact with Rottneros and they offered me the position of CEO,” says Lennart. “I signed up with them and joined in September last year.”
Rottneros is also a company with a long history, having origins all the way back in the 1600s. It has been listed on the stock exchange since 1987. “Rottneros has a very long tradition. It’s an old company,” says Lennart. “And it has gone through some rough times.
After the financial crisis, it went through a restructuring process, but came out of that with very strong finances. With that, they launched a program called Agenda 500, which stretches our paper pulp production from some 330,000 tonnes up to almost 500,000 tonnes over a period of 8 years – that’s 6% to 7% growth per annum, which is strong in this industry.”
“Listening leadership”
While Lennart came to the company during a time of success, he sees this as only furthering the possibility for him to make an impact. “I thought that it was a great opportunity to bring my knowledge, with the great state that the company was in, to help them going forward.”
“It’s the people that matter; they’re the ones who make the difference.”
In terms of what he’s bringing to this role, Lennart says he is working to build a team that practises “listening leadership”. “It’s the people that matter; they’re the ones who make the difference,” he says. “Over the years, I’ve had the great pleasure to work with fantastic managers and bosses, and what aligned them was that they were always available and empathetic.”
Lennart says this approach from his superiors helped him advance in his career; thus he applies that same approach now that he’s in a position of authority. “I believe that a positive leadership style really engages people all the way from the management team down to the operators. That’s what I try to bring to this organisation; that’s how I look at putting my management team together and how I help them put their own teams together as well.”
