Building long-term resilience in consumer markets: A conversation with Aku Vikström, CEO of Orkla Foods Europe

Welcome to The Heidrick & Struggles Leadership Podcast. Heidrick is the premier global provider of diversified solutions across senior-level executive search, leadership assessment and development, team and organizational effectiveness, and culture shaping. Every day, we speak with leaders around the world about how they're meeting rising expectations and managing through volatile times, thinking about individual leaders, teams, organizations, and society. Thank you for joining the conversation.

Kim Pomoell: Hello. I'm Kim Pomoell, a partner-in-charge in Heidrick and Struggles Helsinki office and member of the Consumer Markets and Private Equity practices. In today's podcast, I'm delighted to speak with Aku Vikström, CEO of Orkla Foods Europe, one of the leading branded consumer goods companies in the Nordic and European markets. Orkla manages a broad portfolio of well-known local brands serving millions of consumers across categories and operating in an environment shaped by shifting consumer expectations, cost pressures, and an increase in demand for sustainability and value. Aku has extensive experience in the consumer sector and has been instrumental in driving performance, growth, and transformation across world class food business. Aku, welcome, and thank you for taking the time to speak with us today. 

Aku Vikström: Kim, thanks for the invitation. I'm happy to be here with you today. 

Kim Pomoell: So Aku, the FMCG sector has gone through a significant disruption in recent years from inflation and supply chain pressures and changing consumer expectations. From your perspective, how has this reshaped what it means to lead a consumer's business today? 

Aku Vikström: Well, you know, for a long time the traditional FMCG playbook was built on a very straightforward equation. You got strong brands, broad distribution, scale benefits, good cost control and steady pricing power, and that model translated pretty well into predictable volume growth and expanding margins and rising valuation multiples for listed companies. So the formula was clear: build mass market brands, innovate products, work closely with retailers to drive distribution, then you have to drive, of course, efficiency across the value chain and use M&A to consolidate the markets. A pretty simple playbook. And for years, that worked extremely well. But already, you know, in the 2010s that model started to break down. Consumer behavior became more fragmented, the private labels were becoming stronger at the same time, and subsequently retailer power increased, and growth overall became much harder to find. Then we had a pandemic era, which gave pricing tailwinds, and this actually briefly masked this incapability to grow, but only temporarily, as markets were pushing their prices up following the inflation. But when you look at our industry today, the volume growth is below 1% and you can argue that the year of price-led growth is over. 

So that means for the leadership, one thing: you have to have a very clear growth vision and then understand where the growth is coming from. Growth is no longer something that the market automatically gives you. You have to earn it, and you have to understand how to organically grow your business. And in FMCG, real growth means penetration growth, household reach, stronger mental and physical availability, and you ultimately win market share. So it all starts with being absolutely clear on where to play and how to win. Focus and execution is key to everything. So that's, I would say, just a quick wrap-up where we're coming from and where the industry is today. 

Kim Pomoell: So quite a dramatic change in many areas, actually. When talking about consumer space, it's always been connected to emotions and brand connectivity, but it's increasingly driven by data and technology today. How do you think about bridging those two worlds as a leader, both emotion and technology and data? 

Aku Vikström: First of all, I think it's a common mistake to believe these are two separate worlds. Food has always been very emotional. People do not buy products; they buy habits, trust, memories, and identity in some cases. So, especially in food, brands often live in very personal moments. You and I have grown up with memories from our childhood—warm, family dinners, breakfast routines, celebrations, comforts—and brands have played a role in our, let's say, nostalgia in that part. But emotion without discipline becomes very expensive, and then you can also say that data without emotion becomes irrelevant. So the role of data is not to replace judgement, but to sharpen it. And especially in marketing, we have so many myths, so many beliefs, that the role of the data is to sharpen that judgement that humans always need to make at the end. 

So at Orkla, we use data to understand what truly drives growth. We have penetration tracking everywhere, understanding the repeat purchases, pricing elasticity, media return on investment, assortment and range efficiency, you know, to really understand what matters to consumers versus what only creates internal complexity. And that, I think, is key because, as I said, all of us are marketing experts and too often we tend to bring our own consumption patterns into the decision making. 

But as you know, Kim, this is not always relevant, so you need data to improve that. And you know, for example, some companies believe innovation automatically creates growth. In most of the cases, often it actually creates complexity instead, and data helps us challenge ourselves with facts. So I'm not saying that data will replace leadership, and in the era of AI, I think it's even more important to say that leadership still requires human judgement. Numbers tell you what is happening, but not always why, and that's where you need the consumer's insight. And that's why I like the leadership idea as being both on the balcony and the dance floor, you know, you need to understand the big picture, while staying close enough to feel what's really happening in the markets, in the stores, in the factories, and with the consumers. So whenever I visit our markets, I always start with a store visit, because that's where the magic happens. And the same thing goes with the factories, that you cannot just stand in the balcony and look at the big picture, you really need to understand how things get together on the shop floor. But, you know, technology should help us ask better questions, but not necessarily give faster answers. And I think the best leaders can connect both commercial discipline and human understanding. 

Kim Pomoell: Thanks, that's a lot to take in and follow, and you're quite right. I mean it's something that you and I might not be the brand with the product that the big audience likes. Now, you mentioned private label as one area that has reshaped the market, and many leaders today are balancing short-term performance pressure with long-term brand building. How do you personally navigate that as a CEO? 

Aku Vikström: I actually don't see them as separate agendas. At Orkla we talk a lot about what we need to perform while we transform, and what that means, of course, is that we must deliver today's numbers, but at the same time we need to reshape the business for tomorrow, and you need to do this simultaneously. And I think that too often companies treat performance and transformation as separate agendas, and that's a mistake, from my point of view. Since transformation without performance, we know, you lose credibility, and at the end of the day you lose time, because you need to perform to get the credibility from the organization and stakeholders. But performance without transformation eventually runs out of road, so you need to work on both agendas. 

In any case, in our business, strong brands are the foundation for any long-term profitable growth, but brand building only works if the consumer feels the value proposition is right. So you need to constantly work on making sure your value proposition is right. You mentioned private labels, so this is, of course, putting an extra challenge on the game and you cannot advertise your way out of poor competitiveness. The consumer is very value-focused and value-driven today, and that's why I always start with the consumer and the category reality. In some categories, you know, brands can come on premium, but in others not, and you need to really understand which game you play in. And this is about performing and then transforming your portfolio to be ready for the future, while you're performing. So, in other words, the CEO's job is to hold both. 

Kim Pomoell: When, then, looking at value, as we've been talking about that from many perspectives, the consumer seems to be much more value-conscious, more than ever, in fact. What does value really mean in today's market and what kind of changes do you see as a result of that? And also what does it mean from a leadership perspective? 

Aku Vikström: Yes, I think the biggest misconception is that you translate value meaning cheap. That's not what it means. It means value for money. I often say that price is only an issue in the absence of value. So all starts again by understanding the consumer and understanding what is the value that consumer is ready to pay for. As you said, consumers are very price-aware, especially in everyday purchases, but they will absolutely pay more when the added value is clear. 

And we see that there are, in the food business, drivers [such as] better taste, higher quality, convenience, health, or trust, that consumers are ready to pay a premium [for], but the old assumption that premium automatically wins is gone. And that's why leadership starts with understanding the consumer much better, both globally and locally. There are these global food trends shaping our business, which I think everyone is aware of these days. Convenience, protein, and fiber are key ingredients [that] consumers see a huge value [in], [those] overall healthier choices and products that make your everyday life easier. But then you need to understand that food is also deeply local. Taste habits and expectations are incredibly market-specific and, from our portfolio, pizza is a good example. You would think pizza is pizza wherever you go, from Italy to Finland, and it is a global platform. But what consumers expect, especially in frozen pizza, is very different, even across the Nordics. The crust, the toppings, the personal size, even what it feels like, there is a huge local difference, and our job is to understand that, of course, and then translate that into our product offering. 

And that's why local consumer insight matters so much in food, because predominantly food is all about local taste and local habits. And there are categories where strong brands can carry a premium, but then in others—especially where private labels have a strong footprint—affordability and sharp everyday pricing matter much more. And you need to know in which game you are playing, because you cannot use the same playbook for two different games. 

So I would say, just in a nutshell, we need to be cost-competitive enough to stay in the game, but then we need the brands too that people will actively choose. This is the game, we are in a brand building game. We will not win against private labels focusing only on cost. We need to win by offering consumers something [with] differentiation and better value than just price, and we need to be the expert to understand that and translate this into our brands and our products. 

Kim Pomoell: Thanks. The transition into leadership and culture, you are a strong people leader—it’s how I got to know you—and you're now leading a huge organization that has a change agenda in a way, you might say. In a time of pressure, organizational culture becomes even more important. What kind of culture are you building within Orkla to support both performance and long-term resilience? And when you look at the culture and the evolution of the culture, what's the long-term strength of the organization? 

Aku Vikström: Well, I think to your point, culture becomes most visible when the business is under pressure; that's when you see how people really decide how they act on autopilot. When things are going well, almost any culture can look strong, but when decisions get harder, you know, like in today's world, in the 2020s when there's been extremely abnormal conditions, you have to [face] hard decisions and that's when you see how different organizations and cultures actually work. When you need to take costs out or performance drops, that's when the culture is truly tested. If you look at Orkla, I think we have many strengths: strong local ownership, loyalty, you know, this strong local accountability, and deep market understanding. This is quite unique in the FMCG operating models and companies of our size, and the reason companies are centralizing their decision making and operations in the hunt for efficiency. 

But as I said, as food is very local, we kept our very local demand organization and we need to build on that, because people really care about local brands, local manufacturing, and there is enormous pride in our business, and that matters. So the leadership job is to really capitalize on that pride, while we also need to be clever about not doing every single thing again in the supply chain in a different way, but to find the synergies and system value behind the scenes, in the way we source and manufacture our products. But then when we do and sell our market, we need to let people do their jobs. And that's really where I believe a world class model comes into the picture. 

But, you know, like many successful organizations, I would say also in our case over time you become a bit too comfortable, too complex, and sometimes the Nordics, I would say too nice. And, therefore, I often say we need less consensus and more clarity in the Nordics. This means that we need to, you know, not be overly democratic in all of the decisions we make—to make sure everybody's voice is heard—because then we lose a lot of speed. And for me, it is all about leadership finding the right balance [between] speed, keeping the accountability, and finding the courage to make decisions with 70% certainty instead of, you know, waiting for it to get to100% where everybody's voice is heard. This is the healthy balance in our case and in our culture. 

But I believe, and what I like to say, is that respectful challenge is healthier than polite silence. So letting the voices be heard, but then once we are clear with the decisions, we go and we execute. I want Orkla to be a company with a culture where people speak openly, they, you know, challenge constructively and take ownership, not where decisions disappear into complexity or endless alignment. And, you know, this is a bit of an issue with big corporations these days, you know, nothing comes out of the pipeline. And I think in our case, a decentralized model only works when accountability is crystal clear. Local teams must own results and the center must create value, not bureaucracy, and that balance is very important for us to get right. So I would say the goal is simple: a high performance culture is, like we all say, with trust, ambitious, direct and human at the same time. It's all about both in today's conversations that, you know, we like to put things in polarizing aspects but what we actually need to find in many cases is both and not either/or. 

Kim Pomoell: It sounds like a change that you need to drive and it's something that everybody needs to, in some shape and form, realize to be able to drive towards a set target. Now, we talked a lot about the industry developing, evolving, you might say. What capabilities do you think will become increasingly important for leaders within FMCG, and how are you developing those in your organization? 

Aku Vikström: I would highlight three areas. So first, let's call it commercial sharpness, as we discussed earlier today, leaders really need to understand what truly drives growth. It's about penetration, pricing, mental availability, physical availability and, you know, the category economics. Growth today is much less about broad optimism and much more about disciplined choices. So you need to have a very clear commercial playbook in terms of strategy, but especially in terms of execution, and that's what differentiates. 

The second thing is more maybe around behavioral aspects, and I would call it resilience. I know it sounds like a cliché, but if you look at the 2020 scheme, it's been probably one of the most disruptive periods of my professional life, and you really had to develop different leadership capabilities under COVID. Back then, I was running restaurants, and you know, restaurants were closed down four or five times over two years, We have continuous geopolitical instability, supply chain stoves and so the concept of normal does not really exist anymore. 

And we still continue to work in the same way. We like to do the annual budget at the end of the year, and then we realize after quarter one, we can rip up those budgets because since we made those plans, the world around has completely changed. And so I'm not a big believer in the corporate budgeting process, but I'm a big believer in resilient, agile organizations that understand that the new normal is like it is. Every year, every quarter, there is something different happening and you need to be able to respond to that. And people who can manage in this type of environment, normally are the successful leaders of today, especially in the 2020s. 

So it's not only about, you know, surviving disruption, it's about staying calm, making decisions with incomplete information, and helping the organization keep moving forward when uncertainty is high, that's where you need leadership. 

Then I would call the third leadership maturity, because transformation is not only technical, it is emotional, and people need to understand the why before they follow the how. And the best leaders can really create clarity, alignment, and trust, even when the decisions are difficult. That's what is needed from a good leader, because people need to jump into uncharted waters and follow you. And if you're not able to articulate what that uncharted water is going to be, they tend not to follow you. And one of my old bosses once said, Aku, you are a leader, you know where that word comes from. You have to occasionally check behind [to see] if somebody follows you, because if nobody follows you, you are not the leader. And I think in today's world, when you need to bring organizations to places they've never been, this is even more important. So I think the best leaders combine strategy, execution, resilience, and human leadership, and that combination is quite rare and increasingly valuable. And I think computers and AI will never be able to replace that human leadership aspect. 

Kim Pomoell: I fully agree. That combination that you described is quite a challenge to find in one individual. Now, looking into future executives that are aspiring to join the consumer sector, what kind of advice would you give them when they're building their career and preparing for the complexity that you just described in today's environment? 

Aku Vikström: Well first, Kim, I have to say I'm happy I'm not in your business because what I just described and the requirements from leaders is becoming extremely demanding, and even more demanding to find the right leaders. But that's, of course, your area of specialty. 

Well, if you're asking for advice for people who are, you know, in the start of their careers or their leadership careers, who am I to give any advice? But maybe some reflections from my own past: I think the first thing I would say is stay close to reality. Yes, spend time where the business actually happens, with consumers, customers, in stores, and on the factory floor. I still think too many leaders spend their careers moving further away from the truth and closer to PowerPoint. And that's so easy, that's such a comfort zone to sit in your headquarters and wait for people to present to you with PowerPoints. But you really need to go out there and meet your customers and consumers in the stores, to have the smell of the place. 

Because you need both, what I talked about, the balcony view and the dance floor view, and so then you can combine both. And that's, I think, very important that your elevator goes up and down, you have the zoom in, zoom out capability. Because you need to understand how products are made, how customers buy and, you know, what truly drives consumer decisions, and that you will never learn in a meeting room, listening to PowerPoint. 

Second, I think the world is getting more complex, so we need to learn to make trade-offs. There is never going to be only easy decisions, so leadership is not about having more options, it's about making clear choices, where to invest, where to simplify, where to say no. You know, I talked about our focus strategy; when I started we had 40 brands in our portfolio, we were investing in the brand building, which led to a situation where everything was coming out as average. Today, we have 20 brands where we invest above the threshold level, which makes the needle move. That was not an easy decision, to decide which 50% of those brands you're going to decide to invest in and, of course, this is not my decision, but a decision together with the team. 

But clarity is one of the most underrated leadership skills and I always say that the leadership’s job is to import complexity, export simplicity. And, many times, we tend to explain things in a very complex way, because we think sometimes that this way we will sound more intellectual, but actually it's the other way around. I admire leaders who are able to explain their story in a very simple language and simple way [because] that's needed. 

The third point I would like to mention here, back to the point of the changing environment, is to develop courage. In today's environment, speed matters. We are experiencing AI coming in and changing our world with a speed we have never seen and perfect decisions made too late are often worse than very good decisions made early. So this rule of 70% certainty is enough, is something that I took along from my time with private equity guys is that we don't need to analyze 100%; there is an element of risk—it's all about risk-taking—and sometimes we need to take that 30% risk with our judgment. And when we talk about this risk, very often it is simply the acceptance that things will not always go according to plan. That is what taking risks is and you just have to accept it; that 30% may go wrong but, as I said, it's better to sometimes do that instead of waiting to get 100% right, but then you see your competition has already taken that space. 

So I would say those are the three things. And then, of course, you need to understand that the best leaders are not the smartest people in the room, but often they are the clearest. And I think that's one leadership takeaway, especially in my case—we have an organization full of talented people, much more clever people than me.  [Leaders] should listen to them and the added value the leader brings is [often] just the clarity: Where do we want to go? What are the decisions we're going to make?  Clarity in today's world is very important. 

Kim Pomoell: Thanks, that makes a lot of sense. Now, when looking ahead, what do you believe will differentiate the most successful FMCG leaders over the next decade?

Aku Vikström: I believe the best leaders will be the ones who can create simplicity in complexity. A little bit of the theme that we just discussed. The industry is becoming more volatile every year, we're talking about the geopolitics, supply chain disruptions, AI, sustainability, health trends—you name it—shifting consumer behavior, and constant pressure on cost and competitiveness, and the temptation is to respond with more layers, more reporting, more processes, more work. And I believe the best leaders will actually do the opposite. They will simplify, they create focus, they create speed, they create tasks, and they understand that growth is not optional, but growth must, of course, be profitable, disciplined, and repeatable. So not growth for the sake of growth, but real growth built on stronger brands, better execution, and sharper choices. And I think that they will also understand that leadership is not about having all the answers, it's about creating enough clarity, as we discussed, and confidence in the organization to move forward together. And in the end, this business is still beautiful, it’s simple; great people, great brands, and great execution make great business, and that part never changes. That will hold true. 

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About the interviewer 

Kim Pomoell (kpomoell@heidrick.com) is the partner-in-charge of Heidrick & Struggles’ Helsinki office and a member of the Consumer Markets and Private Equity practices; he is based in the Helsinki office.