WITGBG Portraits: Carolina Jonnor
The Woman in Tech - Gothenburg is a community of remarkable women of diverse backgrounds and experiences. In our Women in Tech Portrait series, we take an intimate look into fabulous and talented individuals, inviting them to answer a few questions.
We welcome Carolina Jonnor. She is a disruptor and an entrepreneur at heart. Her passions in life are meaningful relationships, authenticity and humbly intelligent people. You are most likely to meet her in a coffee shop in central Gothenburg having an intense conversation.
How would you describe yourself and how do your friends/colleagues describe you?
I am loving, brutally honest, mostly happy and somewhat uncompromising, I think. I have very few grey areas when it comes to who and what I believe in.
A colleague just recently described me as a mix of Pippi Långstrump and Jack Sparrow. She explained that as me being curious, courageous, and analytical, while steering the ship with warmth (the warmth as opposed to Jack though). In general I get feedback for being smart, authentic and genuinely interested in people as well as sometimes being too “black or white”.
Tell us about your journey into tech? What is fascinating about working in tech?
I started out as the Regional HR Manager of an IT consultancy many years ago. Later, I went on to manage a team of developers, running my own business, and eventually working as the R&D Lead of a medical decision support for emergency care. I have been the odd one out, with an HR background and no technical education. I always felt however that it was more of an asset than a flaw. If everyone else knows tech, or medicine, then an additional approach makes the team more - not less. I will choose a diverse team over a homogeneous one every day.
The most fascinating thing about working in tech to me is the avalanching need for intelligent innovations and people creating it. It is such a rewarding and humbling experience to work in an industry that just keeps growing and growing. It sort of makes everyone, and everything, possible.
What is the best and the most challenging part of your job?
I just went back to running my own business - working with all aspects of growth and development of solopreneurs, startups and scaleups within tech. I utterly adore being able to choose my own future and the people to be part of it. I love not having to adjust or compromise with my beliefs and my energy. It is truly fulfilling to me to be free - to be Pippi.
The most challenging part on the other hand is the sole responsibility of earning a salary and having to rely on myself alone, letting go of being “taken care of” by someone else and the comfort that can bring from time to time. I guess giving up a guaranteed sustainable income for more of a happy-go-lucky existence (still worth it to me though).
If you could go back in time and give yourself a piece of advice at the start of your career, what would that be?
Define success not only on what others tell you that you are good at but by what genuinely recharges you. What you are able to do is not the same as what you should do and the fact that you can do something well, that others appreciate, is not proof enough that it also makes you happy.
What is the biggest dream for yourself and the industry?
I want to ignite and develop the courage to disrupt old truths. To make how things “should be done” a thing of the past and replace them with how we want to do it. To make tech recruitment less commercial and more human. To replace the hyped culture of branded gadgets like caps and slippers with culture defined by sound and trusting relationships. Full authenticity in people and organisations, I guess.
Tech is such an intense industry, growing by the minute in business and profit - but there is still a lot of work to be done when it comes to maturity and sustainable culture. Growth in numbers alone is not enough to prove success - if you want to be in it for the long run you have to genuinely focus on your people and their everyday happiness even though it takes time and effort to succeed.
How do you define success?
I measure wealth in JOY over ROI. Money is needed to make a living but to me they are the secondary currency, meaning they are not worth having if they are not generated by trust and bring happiness as well. Success to me is doing what I love with people I genuinely care for - to dare to stay real while facing my own fears.
What is one of your super powers?
The ability to be brutally yet lovingly honest.