The period at the university, as
student
In the mid seventies Olof Holmberg was a student at
Technical University of Luleå, located in the Northern part of
Sweden where he was studying an engineering program called M. Sc.
in Applied Mechanics.
During this period as a student at the university,
he was also chosen chairman of the board of the student union. He
held this position for one year and became during this period
involved in education and training within a broad, pedagogical and
social perspective.
The period at the university, as an
employee
After his studies and back in year 1980, the
University employed
Olof Holmberg. His job was to establish a new MBA
program for leaders in small and middle-sized companies. It was a
one year long management training program specially designed for
handling problems with owner and management successions among small
and middle sized companies in the Northern region of the country.
The government and some regional authorities financed the
program.
Participants in this MBA program where chosen among
inheritors to family companies or university- graduated individuals
with at least ten years experience of work as engineers or
economists in leading positions.
During the education, the students participated in
both theoretical studies and practical activities. In this training
program it was a major ambition to test theory in real life
situations to prepare the participants for the jobs they where
about to get after the program.
A large number of institutions and companies such
as bank’s, joint venture capitalists and governmental
institutions where the participants could obtain experience as well
as useful contacts where involved.
Picture above/ Report on the MBA
program.
This is the report on 70 pages from the
pre-study Holmberg did before the MBA program began. It became a
report that attracted rather much attention due to the fact it was
the first attempt to do something like this in
Sweden.
The report was printed in 1000 copies, it is
written in Swedish, and there is no English version
available
During the period as responsible for the MBA
program at the University Holmberg also worked as an independent
consultant. He carried out a number of assignments within the
private and the public sector regarding business and regional
development.
One example was the development program for
companies in peripheral regions in order to improve their export.
This was a training program for sale persons in companies that had
export activities or was about to establish export activities. The
training program was tailor made for each participant and
company.
Picture above/ Report on Export improvements
.
This is the report on 80 pages from the
pre-study Holmberg did before the training program for export
activities began. The report was printed in 500 copies, it is
written in Swedish, and there is no English version
available
The period at the mining company LKAB, as an
employee
After four years in charge of the MBA program at
the university, Holmberg was requited to LKAB. This is a global
company and the biggest mining company in Sweden with at the time
approximately ten thousand employees.
At LKAB he became responsible for management
training and deeply involved in organisational development. During
this period, he had the opportunity to develop an extensive
experience from change and transformation management activities
within the Swedish mining industry. The department Holmberg worked
at became after a while a business unit with a profit and loss
responsibility and finally it became reconfigured into a subsidiary
within the LKAB group.
The period as a partner in a management
consultancy firm
After four years at LKAB Holmberg become a partner
within a management consultancy firm called Svartögården.
This was a buy out solution and the new owners were the senior
officers from the subsidiary at LKAB responsible for management
training and organisational development. Since it during a couple
of years had been a strong request for services from external
customers and that other competitors already tried to buy the
subsidiary owned by LKAB it became obvious that the best idea was
to sell the subsidiary. The owner decided to sell the company to
the senior consultants involved and this is how Holmberg became one
of the owners.
The new private owned company
Svartögården, was still responsible for the management
training within LKAB and had assignments for this training and
other types of services for many years. Along with this, the
company had many other customers representing different types of
operations and businesses.
The period as owner and leader of R Holmberg
Consultancy AB
During the late eighties Holmberg decided to sell
his share in Svartögården and establish his own company.
The new company was still in the same field of competence but with
a slightly different direction and approach then
Svartögården. The new company called R Holmberg
Consultancy AB was in particularly more open for international
assignments.
Executive search
During the period from the late eighties until
today, Holmberg have been working with a number of different
assignments. For example were some comprehensive projects regarding
executive search carried out during the late eighties and in the
beginning of the nineties.
Reconfiguration of the Swedish railway
system
It was also during the late eighties when Holmberg
worked with some major projects within the communication
sector.
He was over several years deeply involved in the
completely reconfiguration of the Swedish railway system where the
infrastructure became separated from the traffic oriented
operations and several new companies became
established.
Sweden was the first country in the world that did
this. The infrastructure got its own organisation called Banverket
who became responsible for the complete infrastructure. The traffic
operation became divided into several different companies basically
depending on if they where dealing with Cargo or person
transportation.
The reorganisation of Botswana Railways and work
with the SADC countries
Furthermore, in the early 90th was the
period when Holmberg (with family) during a couple of years lived
and worked abroad and had assignments for Aid agencies like the
World Bank and SIDA (Swedish International Development Cooperation
Agency). The reorganisation of Botswana Railways is an example of
this.
The background was that it had been a horrible
drought and several years of bad crop in the central parts of
Africa and people were dying of starvation and lack of medicine.
Because of the war in Angola and the civil war in Mozambique it was
not possible to use any harbours or transportation there. The only
possibility for UN and other Aid organisations to transport food
and medicine to the effected areas and the starving people were to
use the harbours in South Africa and the Railway through South
Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi. All these countries
are members of the SADC countries and do to some extent co- operate
regarding railway related issues. In particularly was this the case
in training situations regarding signalling
equipment.
Unfortunately, the Botswana Railways had not been
really working for some decades and it became therefore necessary
to make it operational again. In the beginning, there were major
problems and not much that worked within the railway operation. It
was not even an organisation fully in place and the training needs
for staff involved were enormously big. Things like culture for
quality and security thinking where completely
missing.
Hoverer, there was a number of very talented, well-
educated and ambitious young local staff
that was eager to learn how to make the operation be up and running
again.
This in combination with a large number of
expatriates from all over the world made it possible to make the
railway become working properly and became the crucial component in
the transportation system for food and medicine it was supposed to
be. That is, it became operational enough to support the people in
need, within the effected areas in the central parts of
Africa.
Cooperation’s within the telecom
sector
During the mid 90:th became the already established
relations with the telecom sector heavily intensified and also the
cornerstones to what became the dominating type of customer
Holmberg Consultancy have been working with during the last two
decades.
Within the telecom sector, Holmberg has been
working with a huge number of different assignments. Some of the
very large work has been related to the transformation of old
technology driven hardware oriented telecom operations into
customer driven service providers operating in a global perspective
and in far more than 100 countries.
During the major telecom crisis in the beginning of
this century, Holmberg Consultancy had a number of comprehensive
assignments regarding change and transformation management. In
particularly what regards a reorganisation of R&D activities
where R& D in almost 80 countries became focused into less then
20 countries effecting thousands of people.
Cooperation’s within the nuclear
industry
During the late 90: th did Holmberg began to work
together with companies within the nuclear industry. The
assignments were primarily about organisational development,
government models, process-oriented activities, and to some extend
also including training activities.
Rotary International
Holmberg has been a member of Rotary International
since 1986.
Finally in conclusion
The texts above do indicate what the founder of the
company R Holmberg Consultancy has for knowledge and experience. It
is not possible to describe everything that happened during almost
30 years and perhaps should be included. Aspects’ regarding
confidentiality is crucial to us. We have a policy that we never
give away information about our customers and we stick to
it.
