GUNNEL Wood-chopping board member
She has been named as one of the Swedish IT industry’s most powerful women. She has many years’ experience of leading positions in global IT businesses and her know-how is much in demand among a host of successful companies. Yet few know who she is, this wood-chopping professional director with roots in Luleå in northern Sweden. HiQ Magazine met Gunnel Duveblad to talk about performance, the future and owning your own time.
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nergetic is probably the best word to describe Gunnel Duveblad. It’s difficult not to be swept off your feet by her pace and sense of commitment. She walks swiftly in high heels, has a ready laugh and punctuates her words with expressive gestures of her hands. There is a twinkle in her eye and a commanding presence in her keen, ice-blue gaze. Everything about her suggests positive energy and get-up-and-go, despite the fact that the interview has been timed for an early morning start at the HiQ office, one of the companies for which she is a director. “I’m a morning person. There’s no denying that! Perhaps I shouldn’t mention it, but the day before yesterday I was up and working by five o’clock,” she says. Gunnel Duveblad loves her work. No one who meets her is ever left in any doubt about that – nor about the fact that she is a person who commands respect and is not afraid to air her opinions. But what about all that energy? Where does it come from? What is it that drives her? “It’s difficult to put my finger on any one particular thing. But I’m a very results-oriented person in every respect. I’m motivated to achieve things and I’m fortunate enough to have a job where I’m constantly meeting people who also want to achieve something, people with ideas and passion. I get a lot out of that.” It is not often that we see her in this kind of situation. The name Gunnel Duveblad is well known in the IT industry and the Swedish business world, but the woman herself gives few interviews and makes few public appearances. “Trying to stay in the background has always been my way. I suppose it’s because I prefer to work as a member of a team, where the team gets the credit rather than the individual.”