Camilla Lindgren

For close to six years now, I’ve been office manager in Nykoping, Sweden, which is head office for sales and marketing in the European region. I love the multi-task nature of my role, from caring for the office, to accounts-payable, accounts-receivable and month-end closing, to travel arrangements, and engaging with each colleague to offer ad-hoc support, as well as looking after our visitors.

When we are 15 years old in Sweden, we are given a choice about our future educational path. I chose a practical path that prepared me for office life, but when I left school in the early 1990s, there was a financial crash and it was a challenging period for everyone to find employment. I opted to work in a supermarket, and later on really enjoyed having a job in a bookshop. These experiences helped to develop my skill for keeping an eye-out for everything, and of seeing where the needs are as they arise, as well as forecasting future needs.

I left the bookshop to have my third child, and when my youngest son was a little grown and settled, I decided to take on the challenge of retraining and improving my prospects further. We have excellent support for educational growth in Sweden and I decided to deepen my knowledge about finance and salary. When I was ready to return to work again, I took up another supermarket role, this time managing a team of about twenty.

After a while, I applied for a role at Secure. Somehow I had intuition from the outset, this place and job is for me. I had an interview by VC with Nitin Kingrani who was in UK at the time, but had spent four to five years living and working in Sweden. He understood our culture well.

Since joining I’ve undertaken one external learning course, a diploma in practical accounting. I feel excited about the future prospects here. In recent times we’ve had the chance to host HR colleagues from UK in Nykoping, and I’d love to expand my horizons into this field. I see there is a need and I hope I may be able to deliver it.