Beatrice Tornmark · Chief Human Resources Officer · Europe
The view from the schedule, offered to a board
My contribution to a board
I would bring a board the view from the schedule. Consumer businesses with large part-time workforces take some of their most consequential decisions in documents that seldom reach directors: rota rules, contract terms and the number of people a manager is asked to lead. Those choices shape turnover, safety, customer experience and labour cost at the same time, and they are often traded off locally without anyone adding up the total. I can help a board ask for that total. I can read a workforce paper and tell directors which assumptions about hours, absence or retention carry the result. I know how collective agreements and co-determination work in Sweden and Denmark, and I have written papers for a board on which employee representatives sit. I also understand remuneration committee work from the executive side, including how incentives for store managers interact with agreed pay scales. I would not bring a finance, audit or technology specialism, and I would say so when a discussion needs one.
Judgement in practice
01
Paying for steadier hours before the benefit was proven
When I asked our board to support contracted minimum hours, the finance estimate was a cost of SEK 38 million a year, while the benefit was a forecast reduction in turnover that nobody could promise. I presented both and did not inflate the second. The board asked for a two-year review, with turnover, sales per paid hour and unmatched hours reported every six months, and that reporting is why we could later show the cost had come in below the estimate. As a director I would ask for the same discipline in any workforce proposal: the cost stated plainly, the benefit described as a hypothesis, and a review date fixed before approval. I would also ask who disagreed and why. Our regional managers' objections identified the rural travel problem we later underestimated, and a board that had heard them directly would have pressed us on it sooner. Dissent recorded in a paper is evidence, not an inconvenience to be summarised away.
02
Choosing a standard above the legal minimum for younger workers
After the Karlstad robbery, the question before our board was not whether we had complied with the rules; our legal reading was that we largely had. It was whether compliance was the right standard for a retailer employing several hundred teenagers each summer. The decision cost money and, for one year, cost local young people their summer jobs. A director in that discussion has to weigh a moral and reputational risk against a measurable loss without treating either as automatically decisive. I would bring that experience to a board considering any safety or conduct standard above the legal floor, and I would ask management to show who bears the cost of the higher standard, not only how large it is. In our case it was teenagers in small towns, and the daytime roles that restored their places came a year later than they should have.
My first year on a board
Before my first meeting I would ask for three documents beyond the board pack: the latest employee survey with its written comments, the record of the last two years of negotiations or consultations with employee representatives, and the incentive plans below executive level. Together they reveal more about a consumer business's workforce risks than any people dashboard. In the first six months, with management's agreement, I would visit stores or service sites at opening and closing, and meet the employee representatives if the board has them. I would ask the remuneration committee chair which decisions fall due during the year and prepare for those rather than for everything at once. By the second half of the year I would expect to offer a view on whether the board's workforce reporting shows hours, turnover and safety in a form directors can act on. After twelve months I would ask the chair for a candid review, including where I leaned too heavily on my own company's experience.
Conflicts and their management
My conflicts would be commercial rather than personal. Bralvinge buys from several hundred suppliers, rents most of its stores from property owners who also let space to other retailers, and competes with chains selling home goods, furniture and seasonal products. I would decline a seat at a company competing with us directly in Sweden or Denmark. With a supplier or landlord, I would disclose the relationship, ask the board to minute it and leave the room for any decision on terms with Bralvinge. Labour relations raise a less obvious point: I negotiate with unions that may also represent the other company's employees. I would never carry negotiating positions between the two, and if both employers were in the same bargaining round I would agree with the chair in advance how my executive role would be kept separate.
My independence statement
While I remain at Bralvinge, its suppliers, landlords and competitors could appear on any consumer board I join. I would list those connections for the nomination committee and leave the company to assess my independence under the Swedish Corporate Governance Code or whichever code applies. I hold no shares in any listed retailer.
Board and committee exposure
Presented to the Board or a committee
Bralvinge Hem AB
Board of directors and remuneration committee
March 2021–present
I present workforce, pay and labour-relations papers to the board and its remuneration committee as CHRO. I am not a director of the parent company.
Served as a director
Bralvinge Hem A/S
Board of the wholly owned Danish subsidiary
January 2022–present
Executive director appointed by the parent company. Duties include approving the subsidiary's annual accounts and overseeing the consultation on four store closures in 2024.
Member of a committee
Norrbrinka University College
Advisory council for the human resources and working-life programme
2019–present
Employer member of a council that reviews work placements and course content. It is an advisory body, not a governing board.
Governance learning and readiness
IICA Independent Directors’ Databank: Not yet registered
The IICA Independent Directors' Databank is an Indian requirement and does not apply to the Swedish and Danish appointments I am considering. I have not registered, and the status shown reflects that fact rather than any plan to seek an Indian seat.
Completed a non-executive director programme run by a Swedish directors' association in 2025.
Prepare the supporting analysis for the remuneration committee's annual review of executive and store-manager pay at Bralvinge.
Studying the Swedish Corporate Governance Code's expectations on director independence and committee work.