204 Heléne Mellquist, President Volvo Penta

Welcome to the shipping podcast, where I amid interesting maritime professionals sharing their passion for the shipping industry and their everyday job. I am your host, my name is Lena Gosberg. Hello and welcome to episode 204 of the shipping podcast. The guest in this episode has been on my target list for quite a while now. She's passionate about change, she believes in collaboration, and she's a true leader. I came to know Heléne Mellquist when she was the CEO of Rederi AB Transatlantic, which at the time was a prominent ship owner in Sweden, who willingly lent me an office when I was the Secretary General of The Institute of Shipping Analysis. She went back to the Volvo group where her career started in 1988 and today she is the president of Volvo Penta. I hope you will enjoy my conversation with Helene. One of my takeaways from this meeting is the word inclusiveness, but there is so much more. This is Heléne Mellquist for you. Welcome to the shipping podcast, could you please introduce yourself?

And what is your education?

See, how did you come in contact with the maritime industry?

Yeah, but I'm also thinking that you have a perspective because you're part of the big Volvo group, which is trucks and buses and heavy machinery, I don't know, no that's that's YouTube yeah, and then you are part of that yes. Compared to ship owners or suppliers, they are usually not part of the bigger group, no, so you got a different perspective or I have thought about it like that anyhow.

But I'm also thinking that I mean engines on trucks and buses and so on, that's on land engines, and you have been already or not you, but Volvo and other car manufacturers have already been through what we are going through now in the maritime industry when it comes to sustainability, alternative fuels, electrification, all of that. Yeah, so you must benefit from that.

So what about the clients? You are giving them an offer. Is that a difference when you gave offers to the clients in the maritime industry or is it the same? Yeah, please explain how is that different.

Can you ever mix them or can you snatch things from the other? Exactly definitely. You know, we're passionate maritime people, we always dream about the future, yes, and the sea and everything else I think.

I'm thinking about the average ship owner has maybe 10 ships, so how where will they fit into this ecosystem thinking?

So what are the biggest changes that you have seen during your career?

I get happy when I hear you. Yeah, I'm glad because so am I. Where are we making progress in the big maritime industry? Do you see any changes there from your horizon?

I totally agree with you and I also feel proud to be a Swede because there's so many projects going on yes in the industry as you said, the Wallenius thing, the AtoB, and all the stuff that Stena is doing, but also I mean this on the supplier side, look at Lean Marine and I take and all of those different companies that just were born here exactly. And there's also that we kept such a good cluster of suppliers here and also on the entire ecosystem that are so leading in many of these technologies. It's impressive, it's really good. Yes it is, I just want more people to know about it. Yeah, that's true, no that's really true.

I saw that you have an Innovation Hub, yes. So what is happening there and how do people, is everyone welcome there or do we have several? Because innovation is so...

Then we need to talk about inclusion and diversity. Ah, I mean that's also a trend in a way, but I don't know if I should ask you if you have ever felt not included in your... of course that happens to everybody everywhere, so that's awesome. But the after a while and you also know that Lena, after a while when you get so experienced, you don't think about it any longer, you just live with it. Maybe that's not good. No, but I think also that there has been a huge change in the industry the last 15, 10 years. For me it's completely different to come back also here to Volvo group, it has changed a lot and the way that we work and how we also see upon inclusiveness. We don't talk so much about diversity any longer, we talk about inclusiveness. We have three themes that we talk about when we are developing our culture now. It is of course inclusiveness for success because you need to make the best out of everybody. That I hear, it's so important because I mean whatever you come from, different backgrounds, different geographic, different religion, different gender, everything. And if you stop looking at your prejudice that you have, I also have that, I need to, everybody needs to work with that. But if you can get the best out of the team and also have everybody around, then you get the best, then you have grow to win. Because as we are making these technology changes, we also need to upskill, reskill, and also acquire new technologies and so on. And here's very much up, we work with the individual as well. I spent so much time and I've done that the last years now studying new technologies, new ways of working, because nothing is as it used to be. So I need to put myself on that and so does everyone else as well. And I think that's an individual responsibility. So we have also this learning page where you can also use the Volvo group University and find different trainings in different subjects, but we also do that from without external sources as well. And we acquire companies like we bought them, which is a battery company in Norway for example. And then we have the last one, which is also the most maybe sometimes the most important, that is courage to transform. You need to encourage with this because I mean you could actually wait or go somewhere else or and not do anything, look the other side and do it, continue to do what you are actually doing quite successfully. And that is the thing, when you have a successful company like Volvo Penta, we can continue to be very successful, we do not have to change the coming years. But if we should be here in the long run and if we should be successful in a couple of years, then we really need to change. And then we need to have the courage also to fail a bit, not be as successful maybe, but then also to find the new business models and the new customers and the new way of working. And that's courage. So those are the three.

I hope many people are listening to this episode. Yes, you need courage and to me that is also branding towards the next generation, yes, because we need to recruit the best people to this industry, yep. And we can't do that unless we do what you just said, have some courage. No, definitely. Really, and it's also I mean I know that you all have struggled many years for attracting young people to the marine industry, and I think how we're changing now, we are also high-tech companies. And we know also we talk a lot about employee branding and that's a bit, but it is important and that you also don't, you need to fill it also with true content. And I think nowadays we can actually do that also to attract younger generation with new skills. Because with this that I talked about, inclusiveness, the grow to win, and also the courage, all of that is actually part of that, that taking in new skills, mix it with the old business knowledge that we have, then we can leverage really well. I also think that if I can call them the greater generation, they are expecting us to do that, yes, otherwise they will not choose us or you as an employer. Definitely, we get so many questions around sustainability for the newcomers, and this is the way of measuring them, that you measure the financial performance but you also measure the sustainability part, so you can show true proof points that we're actually doing, putting a lot of investments in this. And that is also why people are attracted coming here now, because they see that we are doing a true change.

So if somebody wants to make a research, choose those areas because that's been, there were a lot of people will be needed. How do you see the future? Oh, so bright.

But you know we can actually make it right. I know, I know. Let's work together to do that. Thank you very much for being a guest on my podcast. I wanted to know, who do you think I should interview next? Oh, Lena, thank you very much for having me though, I'm very honored to be part of this, I know. So it's so special. Next, who could that be?

Thank you, Helen. I'm proud to have you as a guest on the shipping podcast. There are so many good things to pick up from our conversation and I really hope my listeners do. For the curious ones who haven't had the time yet to read up on the history of Volvo Penta, you can do that on their website. Penta, the Greek word for five, was chosen because of the five men attending the meeting when the first drawings of the first engine B1 was presented. So this is the last episode of the shipping podcast 2022. I've also released 26 episodes this year and I have enjoyed all the conversations. I can see from the number of downloads around the globe that the shipping podcast is gaining more and more listeners, which makes me very happy. Thank you for listening. Until the next year, from me to you, over and out. Thank you for listening to the shipping podcast. Don't forget to tell everyone that you meet that there is a shipping podcast available and that they should download it and listen to the maritime professionals who are sharing their passion for the shipping industry.