Lars Lindberg Email and Phone Number

Became co-owner/founder of Padel United United when the privately owned company Padelverket AB merged with Padel United in 2021.The job at Padel United started with the planning and project management of a new padel center in Vallentuna with 9 courts, and has now changed into the planned Center Manager role. It´s a familiar challenge that consists of starting a new center with new personnel and getting the business up and running, but also different as the work to attract customers is much more difficult in a mature market.

Arrow is a global company för services and products within IT, IoT, AI etc. My role aimed at creating new business within the Nordic region, in cooperation with Arrow Europe and my BDM colleagues. Besides scouting and approaching new interesting companies, there was a lot of prospecting via the vast network of suppliers of Arrow.

Started the company from scratch based on the coviction that padel was a sport that could be played and enjoyed by a very large amount of people of all ages. The challenges were many as it was a new type of business, e.g. finding investment capital and loans, making business plans, finding suitabel locations/facilities, finding the right type of IT system support (booking, ERP etc..), buliding permits etc..During the next few years the focus was on building a solid business and founding a Padel Club, together with planning and managing the projects for three other facilities (Älvsjö 6 courts, Spånga 12 courts and Botkyrka 7 courts).It was a very fun and rewarding experience, not only because the business became very succesful very fast but also because I learned a lot of new things, both practical, personal and financial.As of 2021, it is part of the worlds largest Padel company, PDL United.

It’s a multi-purpose role that encompasses all of inRivers more than 100 customers in the Nordic region. One of the main goals is to strengthen the relationship with the customers, mainly:• Help to ensure that they get the right value out of their PIM investment • Support the partners in working proactively with their customers• Creating a relationship with each customer that will benefit both parties• Collecting input to inRiver along the whole process regarding problems and enhancements • Manage customer data in the CRM to enable sales and market activities The other main goal is sales driven and aims at finding, pursuing and closing as many Upsell opportunities as possible. This is done by both direct sales and via Partners, and involves keeping customers up to date on what inRiver can offer as well as making sure that the Partners are proactive in this process.This role has given me a lot of experience and insights in both the complexity as well as what is required to set up a working customer oriented process for a partner driven software company.

The role has focus on complex sales towards new customers in the Nordic region. It implies the whole sales chain, from qualifying phase to prove value and finally creating agreements and negotiating the deal. The work involves a lot of contact and strategic work internally, mostly with the pre-sales team regarding technical requirements and RFP’s, but also with the inRiver partner companies that must be involved as they will manage the whole project estimates and the actual implementation for the customer.Apart from getting the customer to understand the needs and possibilities, the major challenge is to get the customer to shift from a technical perspective and focus on the actual value of investing in an inRiver PIM system.During this period, the entire inRiver sales team worked together to develop a very effective sales process and strategy, aiming at making the complex system sales as easy and effective as possible. It has proven very successful, and personally a much useful experience.

inRiver is a software company developing a PIM platform (Product Information Management) that should be implemented by Partner companies, i.e. consultancy companies that has PIM as part of their total offering. As inRiver has had a rapid growth during the last three years and become 100% partner driven during that time, much of the job has been to find, introduce, educate and coach suitable partners.A major part of that work has been to introduce how inRiver conducts complex system selling, and to help the partners own sales people actively in the sales process. inRiver also has its own sales organization, so the other part of the job has been pure sales work, from lead generation to prospect qualifying and closing business deals, often together with a partner.Focus areas:• Partner management – onboarding, education and sales/business support• Business development – new ideas regarding the roadmap, pricing and partner strategy • Complex system sales, from initial contact to signed agreement• Management of RFI’s and RFP’s, both for inRiver and as support to partners• Budget- and result responsibility, forecasts, follow-ups • Agreement and pricing negotiations

Intellecta Infolog offers system support for the complete information chain within the area of graphical production, warehousing and logistics. The company develops its own web based product for information management, parallel publishing and e-commerce applications.I’m responsible for some of the key customers that have our system solutions and printing services. The work consists of keeping a good business relationship and to obtain the goals for the respective budget and annual turnover (worth of total agreement stock appr. 10 – 15 MSEK) • Single point of contact• Business development – new ideas, customer needs and overall project management • Sales and customer development plans• Responsibility for budget and annual outcomes, forecasts, follow-ups • Agreement and price negotiations• Invoicing responsibility

The goal for this employment was to create a support organization (Helpdesk) with the purpose to act as second line support of all technical customer issues. The work started from scratch - staff was to be employed and a new support system was to be evaluated and purchased. It was both fun and developing, and I especially appreciated the challenge to create an effective department with a satisfied staff.

In this combined employment, I was responsible for the financial control as well as the technical environment (incl. deployment systems). Other than that, I worked with development plans on a strategic level (visions and action plans), and as Key Account Manager for our larger customers (SAAB Automobile, Ahlsell, Ericsson Mobile). During two years, I was TAM/project manager for the development of our internal web based information management and publishing platform. I was part of the management board for the company that had 16 employees.

The role as manager involved the overall responsibility for a company with 16 employees and with an annual turnover of 15 MSEK. The work included all the economics handling, personnel matters and business development plans. I became an associate after a few years and, as is common in such companies, I worked according to the motto “whatever is necessary to get the work done“.