Henrik Anulf knew that he wanted to travel. This is why he decided to study engineering for his master’s degree. A far-fetched connection? Not at all, in his opinion.
The general myth about engineers, believes Henrik Anulf, is that they in fact are sitting in offices and making calculations all the time. This is something that he decided early on never to do.
“I hadn’t really made up my mind about what career to pursue when I was an undergraduate. What I knew, on the other hand, was that I wanted to take part and negotiate larger contracts and to travel a lot in my job. And that is actually what I’m doing just now.”
With his master’s degree in electronics engineering from Lund Institute of Technology, he has a broad technical base on which to stand and the opportunity to choose many different career openings. He specialized in information technology and, at the same time, took an economics course. This might appear to be theoretical and static, but it led to a diversified job.
“I felt that I wanted to work with products in a concrete way and not just sit in front of a computer, day in and day out. Further, I wanted to work in an international environment, which meant travelling and getting the opportunity to see and experience other cultures. That could be found at ABB.”
In 1994 Henrik began as a trainee at ABB. After working for a short period on designing, he focused on sales. That first involved Latin America, then Asia, the Middle East and now the whole world. ABB offers many opportunities, both in Sweden and abroad. If you want to work in another country, in another culture, it actually takes a relatively short time between your decision and to be off.
Henrik Anulf is working today as business controller at High Voltage Products in the Power Technologies division. He is responsible for the business strategies and analysis of future developments in marketing. His daily work also includes the pricing of products and risk analysis.
“My current job is mainly to support and lead salespeople and sales managers. Because we export 95 percent of our products and our largest customers are outside Sweden, a post abroad would be a natural step for me to take so as to come still closer to customers. The list of the things that I would like to do includes being in charge of the local sales or managing a customer project.