Life as a Leadooer: Therése Olsson

Therése Olsson is the Country Lead for Sweden here at Leadoo 💙

Therése is the boss lady in charge of making sure Sweden’s Leadooers are able to do their individual roles, allowing her team to hit targets, and continue to contribute to Leadoo’s international success.

Who are you and what’s your role at Leadoo?

“My name is Therése Olsson, but most people call me Tess!” laughs Tess, “I’m the country lead for Sweden and my day mainly consists of leading the team, and lots of sales! Nowadays though, I spend lots of my time in internal meetings as my role is now more about supporting the team. I directly manage our Swedish sales team, plus I’m responsible for the overall Swedish team performance.”

What does your team look like?

“Well, the Swedish team is made up of a sales team, Customer Success and Marketing. I feel strongly that any decent team should have some serious camaraderie within it – fortunately, our team has that by the bucket-load, and it has a motivational effect when we are working together to meet the same goals,” gushes Tess, “A year ago, there were only 4 people in our team, now we are 14 strong – and growing.” 

Need some good pals and even better colleagues? Want to be part of the camaraderie-laden cool and converting Swedish team? Maybe you’ve got your sights set on a sunny office on the Costa Del Sol?

We’ve got it all. Check out our latest vacancies on our careers page.

When did you join Leadoo and how did you end up here?

“It all started in August 2020, when I started working with Leadoo as a partner in a different company. Santtu (Kottila, our CMO) called to ask if I had anyone who would be a good fit as the Marketing Manager for the Swedish team. I said that I did, and suggested myself!” Tess giggles, “Previously though, I worked as an inbound consultant as a partner for HubSpot. I call myself a hopeless hybrid as I have never truly picked a side between sales and marketing!”

“Before that, I worked across different agencies. My education was in Journalism and Communications, weirdly enough, and when I left university in 2005 there weren’t many jobs available for journalists. I had to have a bit of a rethink. Then I saw a role which was sales and media analysis and it piqued my interest – I thought the product was interesting and it was for one of the first SaaS companies in Sweden!” explains Tess.

When I started, I joined as the Marketing Manager for Sweden, but we didn’t have enough boots on the ground selling so – as is always the way with startups – I jumped in and helped out, as a bit of an unofficial sales team manager I guess!” explains Tess, “Then, in July 2021, I was really happy to be promoted up to Country Lead for Sweden. Since then, it’s been all go – I’ve mainly spent time building up the team and preparing us for 2022 and beyond where we will continue to grow.”

What does a typical day in the life of Tess look like?

“I am a morning person and I need my breakfast!” states Tess, plainly, “I’m not one for getting up at 5am to do press-ups, but my children do normally come and wake me up, usually  around 7.30am. The kids kinda determine what I eat for breakfast and I’m not fussy so as long as it’s some kind of food I’m happy! Today was a treat though as we had pancakes. I also start every day with an Earl Grey tea – very important!” 

Outside of her breakfast habits, Tess has a busy schedule, “In a typical week, I have around 3 sales meetings, and nowadays most of my meetings are internal with members of my team. Recently, we’ve started implementing some fun training sessions, role play and discussion sessions to further everyone’s learning. I have a real blend of meetings too, I spend time brainstorming with our marketing team and the Swedish marketing manager, onboarding new recruits and getting them up to speed – we’re always recruiting as we’re growing, so this makes up a large part of my time now.” 

Back to food, Tess shares some secrets for success: 

“I snack and eat constantly. I’d definitely say I’m a bit of a grazer! But, something I’m quite proud of is that I’m a professional power napper,” Tess laughs, “When I was 25, I was working a full time job and partying a lot, and when the weekend came I’d always be tired. By chance, I got chatting to a friend about it, and they told me to have power naps during the day. I was sceptical at first, and like all things, it takes a while for your body to adapt to, but now, it works absolute wonders. It’s like a brain refresh mid-day, ready for an afternoon of productivity. I usually take 20 minutes after lunch, or if I have meetings, then normally around 3pm. I really do recommend it!”

As a mum, and pet-mum (like many of our Leadooers!), Tess’ evenings aren’t finished once she shuts her laptop: 

“My evenings are usually taken up with my kids and my cats – making sure everyone gets fed and finding something fun to do with them. I really enjoy sewing and used to make clothes for my kids when they were little. My 9 year old son recently made his own hoodie from scratch as he loves crafting and making things too.” Impressive!

“I’m not an evening person really and I tend to go to bed quite early, usually around 9.30/10pm. I know I’m the kind of person who needs my sleep, so I make sure I get an early night every night – in readiness for my 4 year old shaped morning wake up call. Every. Day.” Tess laughs.

What’s your favourite part about your job?

“I would say meeting with clients is something I really enjoy as I love meeting new people, but I do this much less now in my new role. My favourite thing in my new role is probably seeing and facilitating the success of the team and seeing us keep getting better at what we do.” Tess finishes proudly.

And lastly, can you summarise how you find working for Leadoo in no more than 2 sentences?

“It’s the most challenging, friendly, creative, problem-solving and ridiculously fun space rocket that I ever did have the pleasure of setting foot on!” Tess giggles, as she dashes off to meet with her team.

If you’d like to see what opportunities we currently have available, check out our careers page.