“I believe in a green, clean and happy future.”
Anna Lindbäck is a multi-awarded social entrepreneur and published author. Her work as an entrepreneur has entailed developing and executing scalable business models and communication strategies. Her formal education in Sustainable Business Management was attained at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. The bachelor thesis about male entrepreneurs before and after #metoo resulted in a published scientific article in Gender in Management – An International Journal 2020, cited in Strategic Direction’s brief as cutting-edge research.
My story
I believe in a clean, green and happy future. Growing up the climate change and biodiversity crisis became very apparent, I saw with my own eyes sailing each summer how the Baltic Sea turned into a sluggish yellow mess of extreme algae bloomings. But I wanted to run my own business and do-gooders were non-profits, not millionaires. I wanted to crack that nut. My first venture at 13 was freelancing as a short story writer and later at 15 an easy-to-read environmental journalist. Several years and businesses later – today I am an award-winning entrepreneur, dedicated to creating sustainability for-profit.
Sustainability is a very complex matter and selling it has made me an expert in simplifying complex concepts across industries.
I make sure the projects I work on achieve the same success I’ve made – by slimming down concepts, scaling them up and thereby winning clients, positive press, awards and users over and over and over again.
Entrepreneurial life
Cofounder of Food2change, 2change World AB, Nordic Retail Limited and Nanobin AB. Food2change is a non-profit organization which supports grocery stores in the fight against food waste with a network of volunteers. Food2change quickly grew into a nation-wide organization still available today at many grocery stores from the north to south of Sweden. Nanobin is the world’s first smell-free pocket ashtray made out of recycled paper.
As an entrepreneur I have developed and executed communication and growth hacking strategies, focusing on internal and external communication to create a strong organizational culture and brand position. As the CEO I have done the B2B-sales to distributors, grocery store chains and C-level executives at MNE companies along with logistics, administration and public relations reaching national and local news. Today I work as a consultant, helping companies and projects with sustainable communication and strategy to support their growth, sales and brand awareness.
Finalists – CleanTech Challenge 2019
Swedish Junior Water Prize 2010
Startup of the Year 2017 – Guldstänk
Finalists – Stockholm Junior Water Prize 2010
Sustainability prize 2017 – Guldstänk
Consulting
I am passionate about finding opportunities with good communication where “corporate greed” and sustainability intersect. As a consultant, I turn weaknesses and threats into opportunities through innovative communication strategies. This means internal and external communication; networking, perfecting your pitch, online messaging, public relations, website development and business development.
As a business developer, I have gotten the pleasure to coach 150+ startup ideas in various stages and industries using methods based on design thinking, stakeholder analysis and entrepreneurship research.
Previous clients include BPW Sweden, Teknikföretagen Kickstart Digitalisering, TanbeenAmin and Karolinska Institutet.
Academic life
Starting with interdisciplinary global studies about the environment and climate change I concluded that the biggest, fastest change to achieve a sustainable future would be in the business sector since money moves faster than documents.
I went on to study Corporate Social Responsibility and attend the bachelor programme for Sustainable Business Management at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU). At SLU I gained a greater understanding of sustainability and quality management, change management, organizational theory and leadership.
The bachelor thesis on the entrepreneurial identity with a gender perspective investigated the norms of masculinity and being an entrepreneur. The topic was chosen when we discovered the majority of articles problematized or compared women entrepreneurs to men and there was a distinct lack of research on the male entrepreneur norm from a gender perspective. To understand how we can create a more inclusive norm it is important to study the norm and how it is created rather than who or why someone does not fit into it. The thesis was given the highest grade, 5, and rewritten into a published scientific article in Gender in Management An International Journal and later cited in a journal (Strategic Direction) which summarizes the latest cutting-edge research.
Anna Lindbäck 