Malin Bäcklund

Malin is an accomplished executive and CIO turned investor, now working as CEO for Moor Holding.

1. How many days per week do you prefer to work from home and why?

For me, it is important to be able to work from anywhere. However, I don’t want to work from home every day. Meeting my colleagues and stakeholders in person is important to energize and for matters better suited for in-person meetings.

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2. What is a hidden treasure among apps for you — a favorite application of yours that might be unknown to many?

The apps that currently add the most value in my life are those that help me do quick and ad-hoc communication with people and things, apps that I can count on will let me know if I need to act on something. For communication/chat with friends, family, and colleagues I mainly use WhatsApp, for info/alerts on things I use e.g. Smartlife, Wiz, and Plejd.

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3. Any tips on how to use AI in daily life or work? What is your company policy around it?

ChatGPT has, of course, changed the way of working, I use it a lot. In the teams I work with, we have a non-written policy saying  “Always invite ChatGPT/AI to a meeting” meaning that we should always challenge our assumptions and arguments with the answer from an AI tool. Using AI in our daily work makes us more efficient and adds perspective.

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4. What's your most important work tool, making you productive?

ChatGPT and Excel are still very flexible tools that I can’t work without.

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5. What career tips would you give your younger self?

Look for and make sure you work with a visionary and good leader as your manager. Not very easy to assess when you are inexperienced, but I do believe I would have moved on to new jobs more quickly if I had been aware of this from the start. Without a good manager (or a very good manager’s manager) it is difficult to make a difference no matter how good a job you do.

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6. What is your view on employee choice, i.e. flexibility for employees to choose their hardware and software?

People are every business’s most important asset and largest cost. To get the best out of each employee should be every business’ highest priority. Having relevant and appropriate working tools is of course crucial, the individual preferences and needs varies.

Looking back, it has been necessary for organizations to limit the number of choices related to employee tools/equipment for efficiency and security reasons. However, and luckily, today there are new ways and solutions available that make it possible for employees to choose their preferred hardware and software. By applying these new ways of working employees will feel more empowered and become more productive.

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7. What is an ideal new employee onboarding experience?

A frictionless, digital flow that guides the new employee through the onboarding experience. Through such flow, the employee is guided to choose and receive his/her work equipment and tools, to the relevant introduction training, and the physical meetings needed. The solution also provides chat functionality to answer any question and give guidance based on the new employee’s needs and starting point.

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Have you read?  Voices & Choices #6: Interview with Susanna Heigard, Co-Founder of Head Agent Executive Search & Interim

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‍"Voices and Choices" is a weekly interview series where we dig into how top talents, founders and leaders work and what makes them productive.

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