It was the last days of September 2022 when all 15 Young Professional´s participants gathered in Vilnius for the first two-day meeting - eight from Lithuania and seven from Sweden. The program, led by moderator Pär Lager was a mixture of lectures and group discussions, which opened for sincere conversations and new insights, a lot of laughter and a warm and friendly attitude. Among the lecturers was Martin Hårdstedt, history professor at Umeå university, taking the group through five historic events that shaped the Swedish-Lithuanian relations, and Vytenis Šimkus, Swedbank Lithuania senior economist guiding us through the economic aspects of recent history and giving insights about what might be in front of us. This was followed by Kotryna Stankutė-Jaščemskienė, director of MJJ fondas, talking about Lithuanian leadership. In late afternoon a guided tour through Vilnius took place, facilitated by the new Vilnius city museum. The walk ended at a cozy restaurant in the old part of the city.
The next morning the CEO of the hosting bank, SEB Lithuania, Sonata Gutauskaite-Bubneliene came to speak about Swedish - Lithuanian leadership from a Lithuanian point of view, which was followed by a nano workshop, “The best of two worlds”. Last but not least - Lithuanian innovation! Mantas Vilys and Tautvydas Pipiras from the Lithuanian Innovation Center made a presentation of the Lithuanian infrastructure and ecosystem for innovations. Then Swedish fika at the embassy of Sweden in Lithuania - coffee and cookies, along with an informal summary by Ambassador Ms Inger Buxton about current bilateral affairs and the work the embassy does. From the embassy to the parliament, Seimas, and a meeting with Mr Kristijonas Bartoševičius, among other titles vice chair of the inter parliamentary group with Nordic countries, who talked about Lithuanian politics and topical issues.
The second session for the Young Professional´s group was held in Stockholm and started off at the restaurant Pressklubben in the city center together with the whole board of the Sweden-Lithuania Cooperation fund. This was a happy reunion for all of the participants arriving both from Lithuania and from different parts of Sweden. There was chatting with the board members, mutual exchange of impressions and experience from the previous session, as well as information about the fund and its´ goals and purpose.
At the Swedbank headquarters in Sundbyberg the whole group was welcomed by Fredrik Nilzén, sustainability manager at Swedbank Sweden, who gave a brief and concise explanation to what sustainability means for a bank, but also why this is important to society at large. He was followed by another Swedbank employee, Carl Nilsson, economist macro analysis, giving a presentation on Swedish economic history in 60 minutes. This rendered reflections about the two countries, Sweden and Lithuania, having similarities in their histories the group had not been aware of - although at different times. Then Maria Rådström, also Swedbank, now within the HR department, dealing with leadership and talent had a presentation about Swedish leadership. The next topic was about creating the future - entrepreneur Catarina Bertling led the group through a series of exercises to explore, think about and maybe in this way even create their future.
The culture content was ABBA the museum, large enough for an hour-and-a-half long visit, and equally appreciated by both Lithuanian and Swedish program participants.
The last day started with one of the fund´s board members, newly appointed Jelena Angelis, Research Director European Future Innovation System (EFIS) Centre talking about Mission oriented innovation - a very topical issue. Then the group was again divided into smaller groups and the task was to create a program for a similar leadership program in 2026 - what should the content be? After lunch two hours were spent working with prototyping together with Alexander Wennerberg, CEO & Founder of Hives. The participants were taught a method on how to quickly go from idea to prototype by using a very creative and open mindset. The result in this case was a short video clip showing how the two countries Sweden and Lithuania successfully have been working on sustainability issues, which in 2030 has rendered them a special status by UN for other countries to follow.
The event rounding off the whole program was a visit to the Swedish parliament, Riksdagen, where a guided tour was followed by a q & a session with the newly elected member of the parliament, Mr. Stefan Olsson.
The very last item on the agenda was to thank everyone for participating in the program and hand out diplomas, specially designed for he occasion by artist Raija Wallenius.
On behalf of the program - a special thank you to the SEB head quarters in Lithuania and to the Swedbank head quarters in Sweden for hosting us.
Participants from Sweden in the 2022 program: Ruta Petruleviciene, Galit Levy, Viktor Weinberg, Darius Kvainauskas, Pamela Huskin Okinedo, Louise Hermelin and Emanuel Örtengren. The participants from Lithuania: Andželika Rusteikienė, Adam Roževič, Gabija Kajenaite, Laurynas Totoraitis, Vincentas Vilkickis, Linas Jonušauskas, Justina Bagdanavičiūtė, and Julija Dargužė.