By Charlotte Petri Gornitzka | 25 June 2012

After starting her career in adult education, Charlotte Petri Gornitzka has progressed through to positions in management consultancy and successive leadership roles with the charity Save the Children. Now heading up Sweden’s international development agency, SIDA, she tells us about her experiences and priorities for the future

Sweden is one of the biggest donor countries and we are number one when it comes to how much we spend per citizen. We have a long-standing tradition and very strong reputation for development. This means we can really build on our experiences and lead the change that the sector needs today; it needs to be more open to new actors such as businesses and third sector organizations. I am really enjoying having the opportunity and influence that this role gives me — it’s fantastic.

Beginnings

I’m not someone who started to work at field level and then worked my way up. Actually, my first job was in the adult education sector. I was working in performing arts and music to try and encourage people to take it up as a hobby. But the institution I was working for must have seen something in me they liked because I was promoted and eventually became their head of communications. In this role, I mixed with various management consultancies and one of them asked me to join them. This was during the 1990s and there was a trend to start to talk about value-driven businesses. I realized that I am very much value-driven myself, and I found that I enjoyed being involved in good business — this really is in my DNA.

Looking back, I can definitely say I learned a lot from both the adult education and management consultancy sectors. I learned about identifying the driving force behind change and how people react to change, both within an organization and within society. I learned a lot about people and the importance of listening, as well as engaging people in the changes that they themselves will implement.

If you want to develop and build something new you can do it in a good way or a bad way and the better way is by including the people who are going to be affected. They may gain from this new approach, or they may feel victims of this new approach, so what’s key is to really engage and respect people. I think change is more about people and communication than having the perfect strategy.

The lure of development

After some years working as a management consultant, I had a phone call asking if I would consider being Head of Marketing and Communications with the Swedish Red Cross. So I was given the opportunity rather than actively going out to look for it. But since then I have had several opportunities to move on but once I was in the development sector I chose to stay — and I feel very fortunate to have found it.

From the Red Cross, I applied to become Secretary General of Sweden’s Save the Children. I was there for five years and was then asked to head up Save the Children International and so I moved to London for two years, which is where the international headquarters is located. I had a very mixed team in the UK with people from different parts of the world and I really enjoyed that experience. I thought that my Swedish leadership style, which is largely based on consulting colleagues, might lead some people to wonder if I was going to be decisive enough when it came to taking decisions.

But I think it was much appreciated because I am very results-oriented. I am always focused on working for the organization’s mission and always want to aim high. I think that being raised in a Swedish tradition, but also being a very results-oriented person, actually worked really well.

I really enjoyed working with a mixed team, as well as the chance to work for a truly international organization. My task was to persuade the 29 separate country organizations of Save the Children to agree on where to focus, thereby working globally as one organization instead of 29 different ones. We decided to merge Save the Children’s international program into one entity. I was driven by the mission of the charity — which is to work in the best interest of the child both in emergency and long-term relief and development projects. We wanted to save money and be very efficient and effective and the merger enabled us to do that.

SIDA comes calling …

For personal reasons, I had to go back to Sweden. It so happened that the Swedish Government decided to change its management of SIDA and they knew I was back in Sweden and they asked me to be the interim solution for a while. Some time afterwards, they encouraged me to apply for the permanent position and I got it after a very thorough process. I’ve been in post now for approximately a year and half. I’ve got to admit — it was a tough start as we had to fix some budget problems by making people redundant and cutting costs. They knew that I had a management background but my staff was not really sure that I had a sense of mission around development so it really was quite challenging.

The positive news is that we have fixed the problems a little faster than I had foreseen and we are on a very good track now. We are implementing the Government’s policy on development aid and one of the things I really need to be clear about is that I am not deciding where we should work or how much money we should spend in a country; that is the Government’s decision. What we do is implement their choices.

We’re particularly focused on fighting poverty with a human rights perspective, and also creating and building long-term relationships. The strategies we use are often a combination of long-term support to the recipient government’s own proposals, or implementing their plan in combination with direct support to civil society. We also direct support to other organizations that are directly implementing programs which chime with what we want to do.

I have been impressed with the culture at SIDA. We haven’t forgotten the experience of having to cut costs and making redundancies but we have a huge amount of energy behind the mission of the agency. So I must say it’s so far so good — and then some.

Taking it to the max

We have had the debate domestically and some people say we shouldn’t get involved at all but, in general, Swedish people are quite happy to be generous when it comes to aid. However Sweden,

like all other countries involved in development, is very much focused on making sure our programs are as effective as possible.

At SIDA we have concentrated on being more transparent and more results-oriented. We have added some new financial tools to our portfolio. For example, in addition to grants, we offer loans and guarantees in order to inspire investments. Development assistance used to be isolated from the business sector, for example, and now there are so many new partnerships. I am leading a cultural change, with my staff, to be able to engage other parts of society and this is a big reform in itself.

When I get asked about the top three factors in making aid effective, I say that the first priority is you need to know what it is you want to achieve. It sounds so simple but sometimes when you start with very visionary goals you can get lost along the way. You need to know what your contribution to a country is going to achieve and be clear on that.

Secondly, you need to be focused. You need to be focused in the sense that a government agency should know how to prioritize and know about the added value that Swedish aid brings to the table. And thirdly, you need the right partners. You need to work your way up with others and not try to do everything yourself. A good partnership is driven by results and not by bureaucracy.

If you ask me …

The advice I would give people considering a career in development is to start by remembering that there is more than one entry point. You don’t have to start to work in the field — your profession could be economist or lawyer or many others. But you can’t think that you alone will be out there fixing the problem. Whatever your career, you’re always going to be part of a large system.

You also need to be passionate — and professional as well. The sector sometimes suffers from too much passion and too little appreciation of facts and evidence. But if you have the combination of passion and professionalism then you should go for it — it’s the best career you can

This article first appeared in the May edition of Dynamics