Reflecting on the year of 2019

For the Swedish-American Chamber of Commerce, New York, 2019 has been a unique year. Gateway just celebrated the first anniversary of its launch and we hope to build on this very prolific and exciting year, while continuing to build a model modern chamber of commerce. This year, our goal was also to implement impact across all levels of the Chamber, which included launching several successful initiatives such as Impact Track, Innovation Night and Nordic Series of Events. Here’s a look at the highlights that made this year so special.

With the initiation of several new event tracks, we hosted over 70 events, overwhelmingly focusing on the many areas and issues around sustainability and impact. Innovation Night – highlighting Swedish entrepreneurs who have successfully made it on the U.S. market – including several prominent Swedish entrepreneurs such as Pontus Axelsson (CEO, Bontouch) and Willard Ahdritz (Founder & CEO, Kobalt). Nordic Series of Events – spotlighting Nordic values in business – strengthened the historical bond between the Chambers of Commerce of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, and featured networking events such as Human Resources & Cultural Differences and Taste of the Nordics.

Most notably, Impact Track – an initiative harnessing the collective weight of innovation within both financial and private sector work to leverage strength through collective impact – delivered great interest and success. SACCNY has now firmly emerged as a partner and catalyst for engaging and bringing together businesses in this important area. Our kick-off Impact Track event, Investing in Impact, gathered 80+ investors, startups and impact-makers, later followed by one of Impact Track’s most attention grabbing events, Sustainable Fashion Forum, showcasing Swedish sustainable fashion and the announcement of Stockholm Fashion Week’s new direction, Fashion-X, to address the fashion industry’s production cycles crippling effect on the environment. Notable speakers included Jennie Rosén (CEO, Swedish Fashion Council), Sofia Breitholtz (CEO, Reach for Change), Michael Ferraro (Executive Director, FIT & Infor dTech Lab), Sophie Stenbeck (Founding Partner, Max Ventures) and Anna Ryott (Chair, Summa Equity).

Our annual conferences, Executive Women’s Conference, Innovate46 and Sustainology Summit were lauded for high level content and dialogue, and offering invaluable networking. All conferences saw an increase in engagement and attendance, demonstrating that by focusing on impact, we helped drive change within each of the conference’s respective sector. We would like to thank our principal partners Dagens Industri, PWC, Citi, Deloitte, Nasdaq, Swedish Energy Agency and EY for helping highlight the importance of impact in business and we look forward to together continuing this important mission.

For over one hundred years, SACCNY has served as a bridge between Swedish and American businesses. This year, we have furthered this mission by hosting a series of bootcamp style scale-up Acceleration Programs, supporting the establishment of 42 Swedish startups and scaleups on to the U.S. market – this year alone. We would like to sincerely thank our partners, Swedish Energy Agency, SEB Greenhouse, KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Arctic Design of Sweden for collaborating with us.

Gateway, celebrates its first anniversary together with 50+ resident members and desk and studio occupancy close to 90%. As SACCNY continues to grow its support for Swedish startups and scaleups, with an emphasis on innovation, sustainability and impact, the Chamber relies on Gateway as a highway to furthering Swedish business and values on the U.S. market.

With many interesting and high-level individuals and businesses touching down at Gateway, we have enjoyed over 4,000 visitors, including H.M. Queen Silvia of Sweden, H.R.H. the Crown Princess Victoria and her sister, Princess Madeleine, Jonas Prising (Chairman, ManpowerGroup), Anders Gustafsson (CEO, Volvo Car Group), Charlotte Petri Gornitzka (ASG Deputy Executive Director, UNICEF) and Deputy Prime Minister Margot Wallström – to name just a very few! If you haven’t already, please come visit us in 2020.

2019 marked the achievement of new goals and where we pushed ourselves to explore unknown territories. Our accomplishments were made possible with the generous support, contributions and collaboration of our members, partners, as well as each and every one of you in our network. As President and on behalf of the Chamber, I wish you and yours a wonderful Holiday and very Happy New Year.

Sincerely,

Anna Throne-Holst
President