.. and I am the CEO at Bolia International A/S. I have a history that involves a long and inspiring career in international retail and E-tail, working across Europe, the Middle East and Asia before picking up the mantle at Bolia and taking part in our global expansion and creative journey since 2005. Besides a strong passion for Nordic design, creativity, and happy customers, I am a music producer, mountaineer and self-proclaimed familianaire, enjoying life together with my wife our three children and two dogs.
I simply love my work and my colleagues at Bolia.com, and although I have been CEO in Bolia for more than a decade, every new day is still just as exciting as the first day I stepped into the office.
If you would like to read more about our company seen through the eyes of a CEO, you can check out my recent talk with a journalist below.
This summer we decided to spend our holidays in good old Denmark and to make it a full-blown chill-cation with beach, nature, music, books, love, healthy food, yoga, and workouts – and a good splash of wine and visiting friends. We enjoyed our first summer in our new historical villa in Aarhus, we went down to our summer villa and silent retreat in beautiful Falsled – and we spent some days in Copenhagen visiting our three grown-up kids who all live and study there.
It was perfect, and our summer vacation turned out exactly as we planned (especially since we really didn´t have any plans :0)
What surprised me the most, when I came back to work, was how calm the atmosphere at our head office was, considering that we are preparing a global launch of our AW new collection, rebuilding all our stores in Europe, designing a new website and much more – all with deadline begin August.
Everything is on track; everyone is so cool, and spirits are high. This really confirms to me what an amazing bunch of people that work with me in Bolia. Love them all.
My heart starts beating faster when I see a wide range of things come together into one single product design.
It´s about cleverness and simplicity, it´s about shapes and beauty, it´s about uniqueness and Bolia identity, it´s about choice of materials, it´s about craftsmanship, it´s about tactility and functionality, it´s about sustainability and longevity, it´s about making that one design becoming a natural part of the complete collection – and it´s about commerciality and the possibility for developing the single design into a future design family.
And finally, I also love when the design has a special story to tell. A design background, a fun reference, a hidden feature or just another quirky little thing that gives the design an extra bit of personality.
Yes, surely. I believe that keeping mementos and documenting history as it progress is an important part of running a developing business.
As we take a step forward each day and the months and years go by, we tend to look ahead and sometimes forget where we are coming from. As we are growing fast in Bolia, many existing and all new colleagues have only seen Bolia from where we are today. Therefore, we have documented the full Bolia History with stories and pictures from the very first years and every single year up until today. We have a full web print out of our very first collection and we have a library with each lookbook and brand book we have created during the years.
All this is a good way to visualize our company-, design-, brand- and cultural development, it pays respect to all the efforts we did in the past that has made us who we are today - and it is also really fun for newcomers to see.
First, we identify in which cities we should establish one or more Bolia stores at both existing and new markets. Then we work together with local specialists who knows the individual city and can help us locate the right spot based on our specific brief with our wishes for size, placement, authenticity, façade, layout, interior, local community development, traffic, terms, and price.
We want every single store to look and feel local and be relevant in each community, and that is why not two Bolia stores are alike. So, one of the most important things for us is to find a location and a beautiful building with history, identity, and authenticity. We love bringing an old historic building, that has been poorly modernized, back to its original features and let it shine in its lovely city again.
Yes, we have been working with sensory store experience for more than ten years now, and it has been great fun and very well perceived by our customers.
Some initiatives are so subtle that I guess that our customers might not be aware of these, such as when we work with fragrances, tactility, and invitations to touch and feel.
And some are more visual and recognizable, such as when we work with installations, tastes, and sounds.
Some of the new fun initiatives we will launch during Autumn is a creative update of our Design Atelier area in all stores, a variety of beautiful new installations and merchandising solutions, new delicious vegan snacks for our store visitors and of course new Bolia mixtapes.
Also, we are launching four stunning new Bolia DJ sofa sessions online, and a new inspiring collection with an exciting creative collaboration with PioneerDJ.
Haha, I have a diverse music preference that spans from mindful ambient, melancholiac classical tracks and atmospheric soundtracks from my favorite movies – and to ‘90s hip-hop and current hip-hop artists - to deep, tech and progressive House.
Music is a huge part of my life, so it is always playing wherever I am. I have full blown Pioneer DJ gear in the dining room at home and in our summer cottage – the house is rigged with loudspeakers and there is always a juicy playlist on in my car.
I am sorry to say that I never listen to music from traditional radio stations, but instead I stream from Frisky, Proton, Mixcloud, Spotify and Soundcloud.
Some of my go-to activities when I need to relax or reload are the following:
Hang out with my wife, drink good red wine, run and work-out, reload with natural foods and supplements, listen to ambient music and meditate, go to the nearby beach or the woods with our two French bull-dogs (Conrad and Bowie), play Last of Us on my PS5 for the 20th time, travel to our summer cottage in lovely Falsled, where I can work-out, swim, sauna and listen to the soundtrack of nature.
My aim is to be in balance and in a strong space every day, so I am very much aware about my energy, my mood, my mind, and my body from the moment I wake up.
Making things a bit more complicated, I also want to add that hard work and tough challenges can also be a way of relaxation for me, because I love the feeling of getting things done and seeing results though honest sweat.
The fun thing about energy is that sometimes you must use it, to get it.
When I was a kid, I was collecting all kinds of crazy nerdy stuff, but today I am not really a big collector within specific areas.
The only things I am collecting today is good red wine, happy memories and handpicked stuff that fits into the bigger picture of my life. I am not a big shopper and I prefer to buy “less but better” and in fact, I am actually more focused on getting rid of stuff these days :0)
I just asked her, and she said that I have never been good at asking for her opinion….
Haha, meta jokes aside. Honestly, I am a terrible swimmer, I am really bad at remembering names, I don´t spend enough time with my wonderful children, I can be stubborn as a mule, I have convinced myself that I am a great chef, even though I never cook….
– and the list goes on and on…
Oh, that´s a big question. I will try to make it short.
If, at the end of another eventful day filled with meaningful encounters and a bunch of decision-making, I can retire to bed with the satisfaction of having brought about positive change and nudged things in the right direction, I couldn't ask for much more.
You know, if you can change one person…..