Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/56540
Making By Tricia Bisoux Connections F or Carl-Henric Svanberg, big problems are reasons to be excited, not intimidated. Whether it's tackling the challenges of the global telecommunications industry or finding ways to connect remote African villages to the informational grid, Svanberg does not shy away from complexity. And neither should business students, says the CEO of tele- com giant Ericsson, based in Stockholm, Sweden. An aim of business education, he says, should be to instill in students the confidence that they can solve even the most intracta- ble problems. Svanberg devel- oped this trait himself as he pursued his bachelor's degree in engineering at Sweden's Linköping Institute. "The study of applied physics gives you the self-confidence to know that you can understand the most com- plex matters," he says, "even if you have to work at them." After graduating from Linköping, Svanberg joined engineering Ericsson CEO Carl-Henric Svanberg believes that connectivity may be the answer to many of the world's biggest problems. Business students must be prepared, he says, to make essential global connections happen. export firm Asea (which later became Asea Brown Boveri), where he became a manager by age 28. He then attended business school at Sweden's Uppsala University, earning his bachelor's in business administration. "My business education was hands-on and very useful," Svanberg says. "I appreciated how well it related to what I worked on every day, whether it was general accounting, macro- economics, foreign trade, hedging policies, or foreign currencies." 16 BizEd JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2009