CEO at Visit Linköping & Co
Do you want to be part of making a growing city a destination that people choose, return to, and talk about?
Linköping is a city with strong growth, an international business community, a university, innovation, culture, sports, and a position in the middle of one of Sweden’s most dynamic regions. But an attractive city does not automatically become an attractive destination. That’s where Visit Linköping & Co comes in.
We are Linköping’s destination company and work to develop and market Linköping as a visitor, event, and meeting destination. Together with the business community, tourism industry, associations, cultural actors, the university, the municipality, and other partners, we create reasons to come here, stay longer, and want to come back.
We work with the whole of Linköping as an arena and operate Linköping Concert & Congress and have a special responsibility for filling the Saab arena with events. Our mission is both commercial and community-building: more meetings, events, and visits should strengthen the city’s attractiveness, create values for Linköping’s residents, and contribute to growth and new jobs.
Your mission
As CEO, you have overall responsibility for Visit Linköping & Co’s operations, results, employees, and development. You report to the board and lead an organization with approximately 50 permanently employed staff and additional employees engaged in connection with events and conferences. But the mission is larger than the organization itself.
You are expected to be a driving force in the development of Linköping as a destination and bring together actors around a common ambition for the city. This means building strong relationships with the business community, tourism industry, culture and sports, academia, the municipality, and other public actors, while developing the company’s business and offerings.
You need to be able to see both the city and the business. One day may involve long-term destination strategy and dialogue with the owners and political leadership. The next might be about a larger event, an international meeting, arena occupancy, or a new partnership that can create value for Linköping.
A central part of the mission will be to turn strategy into results: strengthen Linköping’s position relative to other destinations, attract more relevant meetings and events, develop collaborations, and create conditions for a competitive and sustainable tourism industry.
The leadership we seek
We are looking for an experienced leader who gets people and organizations to want to move in the same direction.
You combine strategic insight with executional power and have documented experience in leading operations with responsibility for results. You understand how brand, business, experience, and long-term development are connected, and you are used to navigating environments with many stakeholders and sometimes different perspectives.
Experience in destination work, events, hospitality, culture, arenas, place development, or other activities with strong customer, partner, and community relations is valuable. You have also shown in previous roles that you have developed operations, built partnerships, and achieved results through others.
Since Visit Linköping & Co is a municipal company, you need to understand the conditions for operating in a politically governed organization.
As much of our activities are carried out in the evenings and weekends, you need to have living arrangements that allow you to be present in Linköping.
As a person, you are curious, confident, and relationship-building. You have the courage to set direction and make decisions but also the humility to listen. You build trust internally and externally and create energy around a common ambition.
You have a relevant academic education or equivalent experience.
A mission that is visible and tangible
This is not a CEO mission where success is easy to measure. The result is noticeable in a full arena. In a congress that chooses Linköping over another city. In a new tourist attraction. In hotel nights and restaurant visits. In a stronger business community. And perhaps most importantly, in that more people have a reason to discover Linköping.
For us, joy, courage, and professionalism are more than words. They describe how we want to work and what we want people to encounter in contact with us.
If you see the potential in Linköping and want to bring together people, ideas, and activities to realize it, we would love to hear from you.
Welcome with your application no later than October 11!
Visit Linköping & Co collaborates with AS&B Executive in this recruitment. For more information about the position contact recruitment consultant Conny Besterman, conny.besterman@asb-executive.se, 070-618 11 62.
