Working for collaboration

It was supposed to be a two-week stint sorting paper at a small company, but instead it became the start of Ingella Billquist’s career in IT. The year was 1994, and when she joined a company,
that had just received a new computer program that used something called a “mouse.” Panic reigned, until Ingella declared she might be able to help. Two weeks turned into two years, and by that time she had
come to the conclusion that “this data stuff ” –  as people still called it – was probably her thing.
Ingella started as Collaboration Manager at Axel Johnson International in 2017, and her job is to get the more than 4,000 employees within the Group to collaborate better and work smarter with the help of Microsoft Office products. Among other things this means she trains employees in Microsoft Office’s product catalog,  combining the human and the digital on people’s own terms. This gives an important competitive advantage to small companies without the resources to explore all the new, digital tools for themselves. “Our companies need to be incredibly more well-equipped to adjust and use the tools that are available, compared to competitors who don’t have the muscle we have,” says Ingella.

My hope is that I can make people change something in their lives for the better.

WORK SMARTER – NOT HARDER
“Giving others the opportunity to work smarter with the help of digital tools is the most fun about this job”, Ingella says.  Meaning that each person should see the benefit of using digital tools and feel that through such tools, they gain better control over their work – which has been particularly important in recent times, as the coronavirus has meant that most employees work remotely.

Influencing people positively is what drives her professionally as well as privately. “My hope is that I can make people change something in their lives for the better. That they get a slightly better day just because of me – that’s fantastic.”