Södra snapshot: Jenny Gotthardsson


With 20 years’ experience in the mining industry, our new mill manager at Södra Cell Värö comes from a different sector but is no stranger to dealing with everything from sustainability to product quality and safety of personnel. We’re excited to have her with us.

“My time at Södra has started with a warm welcome, meeting as many people as possible throughout the operation. I’m excited to be here. Having spent more than 20 enjoyable years in mining, it was time for a new challenge, to see how I could apply what I have learned to another sector. I was already familiar with Södra when the opportunity arose and was attracted to a business model centred around sustainable forestry. A large part of my previous role was concerned with sustainability as well as production and employee safety.

“Climate change mitigation is an urgent matter for us all. Minimising impact was certainly a major concern for the mining sector, and it feels good to be working for a company that has so much potential to offer alternatives to fossil-based materials. While pulp is a new product for me, the fundamental concerns of the business are similar when it comes to process optimisation, digitalisation, automation and the differentiation required to be the supplier of choice.

“I have yet to meet any customers as these first weeks are all about getting to know my colleagues and internal operations, but I am really looking forward to doing so very soon. I’m not rushing in with strong ideas before understanding the bigger picture and certainly don’t want to fix things that aren’t broken. Hopefully my perspective from an industry which is different but has many similar challenges, will prove useful: product differentiation, minimal carbon footprint, consistency, reliability and quality are all familiar to me. I’m eager to discuss them with customers!”