ALUMNI

ALUMNI FLASHBACK FROM THE TIMES WHEN HHUS WAS BORN

BY EVA LUNDSTRÖM, MARKETING PROFESSIONAL SINCE

The year was 1994, the dress code was Gore-Tex and the go-to-vehicle was mountain bikes – all year around no matter weather conditions. Umeå School of Business, Economics and Statistics had been around for five years and I carried a heavy load of Kotler and an even heavier load of Economics and Statistics literature in my backpack. My goal with my studies was very straight-forward;

to learn as much as possible about marketing and then leave Umeå.

My name is Eva Lundström and I studied at USBE 1994-1997. I was asked to share memories and reflections from my study years - a friendly reminder that unbelievable 25 years had passed since I graduated. Actually, the very same year (1997) as another important era started, the business student association, HHUS.

With an imminent risk of sounding like I am 100 years old I must admit that during my years at USBE mobile phones and even e-mailing was a novelty. There was a set of very stationary computers in the basement from where we could email our first, staggering digital messages. A possible reply could be read when you got back to the basement again and a couple of days could easily pass in between.

The main auditorium back then, “Hörsal A”, is considerable smaller than I remembered, the café is now situated on the top of the rotunda (physically unimaginable back then) and the entire facility is nowadays appropriately named Lindellhallen.

When looking back it is not the endless hours in the university library, my struggle with statistics or the late nights writing my thesis that comes to my mind. What I remember the most is the lecturers that challenged us every week and kept us on our toes all the way to the examination. I remember the ones who locked the doors to the auditorium at 8.15 sharp regardless the amount of snow on the cycle paths, and the ones that embraced and introduced us to the “real” business life by dragging us out from the safe haven of campus. And I especially remember the lecturers that not only were on top on what they taught us but also excelled in how they conveyed their messages. All these memories have turned into important and lifelong learnings alongside the theoretical knowledge I gained.

I rushed through my studies into my professional life with my newly achieved degree, feeling confident in my knowledge and ready to tackle any marketing challenge. Lesson learned: you will have several years of work ahead of you, so there is no need to rush. Embrace the luxury of learning. During my first professional years I worked long hours and was often the one turning out the office lights around 10-11pm, grabbing my then hightech Nokia 8110 and running to the subway. Lessons learned: it is not the amount of work hours you put in that makes the difference, the trick is to prioritize what is important and not. Further down the road I have also realized that people tend to forget what you said but not how you said it. And I have also learnt that asking questions is not a sign of weakness, it is exactly the opposite. I sometimes wish that someone could have told me this back then, but ultimately your own experiences play the most important role.

25 years is a long time, and I am grateful and a bit surprised that my interest in marketing has taken me through decades of a feeling of having the best job in the world. I’ve been working in marketing managerial and leadership roles at companies such as TUI, Travelocity, SATS, Apollo Travel Group, Scandic Hotels and currently MediaCom. And that is exactly what you should strive for, a job so fun and rewarding that it doesn’t feel like a job. I am convinced that you perform your best by doing things you love and have a real interest in. That said, don’t forget to challenge yourself - and don’t be afraid to change path if you want to. Search for opportunities and dare to try something outside your comfort zone. What is the worst thing that can happen? If you are reading this, you already have a solid fallback in your education. Life is too short and the opportunities along the way are so many, most of them not even imaginable yet. Have you heard about the saying “things you didn’t know that you didn’t know”? The faster the world around us develops, the broader the gap between what we know and what we don’t know grows. And that is perfectly OK even if it feels a bit scary.

Right now, the world is going through several severe challenges, a recent pandemic, an ongoing war, an unstable political environment, and an environmental crisis. In Sweden, for the first time in my lifetime, we might need to adjust our usage of energy and be prepared for shortages of other necessities. A major test for sure, but on the other hand, new opportunities tend to arise when we need to find new, smarter, and more efficient ways of doing things. To choose to be a part of the solutions is a responsibility but also a huge opportunity.

A lot has changed during the years but on the reading list I still find both Philip Kotler and my personal favorite Jan Carlzon. Umeå is truly a great town which I enjoy visit regularly, sometimes to meet students at USBE and talk about leadership – an opportunity I am humbly thankful for. Dan Frost (director of studies these days) hasn’t aged a bit and E-puben seems to be as vital as ever which feels comforting for an alumna as me. And for my marketing skills, to be honest, I am still learning and have no intent to stop doing so. I love it. But if I would return to USBE today I would probably study economics, since it is essential for so many aspects of life.

You have probably already figured this out; my best advice to you is to have fun, learn, live, and enjoy every minute of it. You never regret learning, and your education will be one of the most important steppingstones in your life. You will even long back to lectures and examinations, I promise. There is so much more to learn for all of us, so continue to be curious. Curiosity is really the mother of all knowledge.

It is almost impossible to think that in 1993, the year before I started at USBE, only 1,7% of the Swedish population used Internet (which suddenly makes the complicated process of emailing in the basement bit more understandable) Fast-forward to 25 years from now, all the way to 2047. What will be the equivalent to the ancient, stationary computers in the basement? What we do know is that HHUS will be turning 50 and the number of USBE alumns will have grown thousandfold. And maybe one of them will be asked to write about their memories from the year of 2022. I promise will read it with great interest and I am sure that I will learn something new.

Eva Lundström