After an amazing year, now it’s time to say “See you later”!

After our development week in Japan, we spent all our energy as a group preparing for our final presentation to the Executive Leadership Team, where we would share our findings from our second assignment and close our tenure as the YAB 2017-2018.

Once more, we all met in Stockholm and presented the output of our work, which we are very happy to say was very well received. Having officially closed that chapter of our careers, we felt that some celebration was in order, so we spent the rest of the day together having lunch and going over what the past year had meant to us, both as a group and as individuals.

The YAB during their final presentation to the ET which was held in a beautiful venue in the Stockholm Archipelago.

So now we’d like to look back a little and share some of our reflections with those of you reading this post!

The first thing we all agreed on is how much we’ve grown as a team. Over the course of the year, we’ve all learned each other’s strengths and how to leverage them and interact in a way to extract the best from each of us. We’ve also learned to lean on each other, and to support one another through busier times.

Even though we each come from very different backgrounds, experiences, and cultures, we strongly believe that this has made us much stronger as a team. We’ve come to admire each other’s uniqueness and witnessed firsthand how trusting each other led to better outputs. We all agreed on how our group was one of the most vivid examples we have experienced of how powerful diversity can be.

Adriana: Being a part of YAB and working with these amazing people has pushed me to grow, not just as a professional, but also as a person. I have been constantly pushed to be better, to learn more, to reach out to more people, to collaborate, and to look for solutions. I have learnt much about Ericsson as a company, but also about myself and what I can achieve. Being around my incredible fellow YABs has motivated me to take some big challenges in my career at Ericsson, and I can only thank each one of them for inspiring me to reach higher.

Bo: What a fantastic one-year journey! Being in the YAB was definitely the best career experience I had – one that helped broadening my view, enhancing my skills, expanding my networks, and shaping my career path. Just recently I was asked by a colleague if given the chance I would choose to do it again. Despite all the challenges throughout the year, my answer was: Absolutely! Without a moment of hesitation! Apart from the valuable experiences gained from the challenging CEO assignments, the most valuable part of the journey, is becoming good friends with all the members of this amazing team. Now, we are again back to our own separate tasks. As what we did in our YAB journey, I feel confident that we will each of us continue to shape a better future for Ericsson. Go team! Go Ericsson!

Mina: Being a member of YAB for the past year has been one of the most challenging professional experiences I have had, but also one of the most exciting year of my career. I have grown both professionally as well as personally, continuously being pushed to learn and develop. I am very grateful for this opportunity, but I am especially thankful that I took on this challenge with this specific team of talented YAB colleagues. Throughout our assignments I have interacted with talented and committed Ericsson colleagues working for the success of our company, which make me feel very proud to be part of Ericsson.

Sadi: This has been one of the most enriching experiences in my entire professional career and I’m quite sad it’s ending. I have learned so many valuable lessons from my YAB colleagues and from the so many interesting interactions we had throughout this journey that I am sure I will leverage on to become a stronger professional and person. It was also so motivating and invigorating for me to see how committed all our Ericsson colleagues are to making this company succeed.

Ryan: I am truly grateful for the opportunity to participate in the YAB and for the chance to meet and grow with such talented colleagues.  There is no doubt that the experience helped broaden me both personally and professionally.  Throughout the experience, I was continually impressed with the caliber of people and leaders that we interacted with throughout our assignments.  There are many people in this company working to improve it every day, and I am honored to have had the privilege to work amongst them.

Jacob: When I was first nominated for the YAB I did not know what it was. During my first interview with Talent Management I learnt what it was, and I wanted to be a member because of what I thought it would do for my career. Now, after our tenure as the YAB has ended, the exposure we have gotten and the things I have learnt have been better than I had imagined. But not only has being a member of the YAB been a great opportunity to further my professional career, but as emphasized by all my fellow and now former YAB colleagues above, we have all grown personally and I’m proud to say Adriana, Mina, Bo, Sadi and Ryan are not only my colleagues but my friends.

This experience has really challenged us to be better, and we believe that we’ve been able to rise to the challenge in great part thanks to the amazing team dynamic that we’ve developed. We each take with us 5 new friendships that we are sure will remain with us for a very long time!

As much as this has been great for all of us individually, this was also very much about our company and having a real opportunity to make it better and stronger. When we started, we all sought out to make sure that the work we did was relevant and would not be put in a drawer. We can safely say that this goal was achieved as several outcomes of our investigation have been fully adopted and handed over to the rest of the organization. We know that there are a some of our colleagues out there that sometimes feel their voices are not heard, that this company is too big to move fast, or to move at all. Our experience as part of this Advisory Board is proof that this is not the case, so we would like to encourage all our colleagues to continue raising their voices and improving this company for the better! We are ONE Ericsson and together we will succeed!

With sincere appreciation for this opportunity, and with the commitment that, even if our story as the YAB is over, we will continue driving this company to success through our own roles, yours truly:

Adriana, Bo, Jacob, Mina, Ryan and Sadi

Young Advisory Board 2017-2018