Leadership Profiles: Camilla André

Leadership 

How would you describe yourself as a leader?

“As a leader I am authentic and I strive to live according to my values, it’s important to understand that you are a role model in an organization. The true feedback comes from your team. I strive towards being a model leader who amongst many things listens to my employees. I see them as partners, and what we achieve we achieve together.” Camilla’s focus as a leader is on a collaborative atmosphere that encourages growth, striving to bring out the best in each individual.

Prestige is not the approach that Camilla chooses, she believes in transparency and an uplifting atmosphere  “I try to always encourage my team to share, to have a dialogue, if they have anything on their mind to please let me know. I try to be positive and very transparent. I think it’s important to listen. Everything should be centered around a dialogue and with that, see how we can achieve greatness together.”

How does Etteplan support leadership and growth?

“I have a very close and open dialogue with my boss of course, I try to share, and I am not afraid to share what I want in both short- and long term. I am very interested in leadership, I am in the beginning of my career as a leader, so I try to be open minded and curious, and see what a great leader looks like today. I think everybody has something to learn all life long.”

Camilla believes that to be a role model, you should take example from leaders that you admire and can learn from, to lead by heart. Having a great mentor that you are inspired by that can provide guidance is also an invaluable asset.

Culture

How would you describe the culture at Etteplan?

“I would say it’s very open minded, it feels prestigeless and transparent. When I started at Etteplan it felt like a family.” The cooperation and collaboration with colleagues throughout the company is important to Camilla, “everyone is here to help”.

In what ways do you feel you have an impact on the company culture?

“I think that as a leader, you are always a role model, everything I do will impact the culture because I am a leader.” Camilla leads by example, and by trusting her intuition. “I try to listen to myself, what I think is important, how I think we should treat each other, and I try to be very open minded and having the feeling of team effort.” By making everyone feel seen, Camilla believes that the most impact comes from sharing, “ we used to say that alone we are strong, but I believe that together we are stronger.”

Values

Our values are: Customer oriented, attractive and proactive. What do they mean to you?

“Customer oriented is a very central part. Our customers and our employees are linked together – if we don’t have one of them we don’t have anything. Being attractive is about being professional and having deep knowledge within our competence areas. Our customers are crucial, they are who we work with on a daily basis” Camilla says that actions speak loudly, so how we act and what we do for both our people and our customers will affect our relationships, “especially in consultancy, they are a very central part of the business.”

Finally, “proactiveness is all about being open minded and asking questions, having a fearless approach, being ahead in the technical area, and being the preferred partner for our customers.

How are the values seen in practice?

“My role and the roles of my team are very customer oriented. How I interact with the customers, how this impacts my teams’ interactions - we are all linked together.” Camilla shares that the values of Etteplan can be seen throughout every process, and that every process in the chain is linked.

Wildcard: If you could offer one piece of advice about anything, what would it be?

“My mentor has always taught me that if you get a challenge – just say yes and ask for help along the way.” Getting your foot in the door is the first step Camilla shares, “ then you are in – asking for help can help you come up with solutions and find new ways to go further.