Helena Leufstadius appointed new Chair of K2
Helena Leufstadius, who has held numerous senior positions within the public transport sector throughout her long professional career, has been appointed the new Chair of the Board of K2 – Sweden’s national knowledge centre for collective mobility.
Already during her university studies in Gothenburg in the 1980s, Helena Leufstadius began working as a bus and tram driver. Forty years later, she has worked with all modes of transport except aviation – boat, bus, tram, and train – and in a wide range of roles, including CEO of several regional public transport authorities, Head of Contracts at SJ, and expert consultant at Sweco.
“I’ve had an unusual career path – a lot of learning by doing. In fact, it was pure chance that I ended up in public transport. But I had a mentor who once said to me: ‘Yes, it may have been a coincidence that you started there, but it’s probably no coincidence that you stayed,’” says Helena Leufstadius.
In 2016, she was appointed CEO of Svensk Kollektivtrafik, a position she held until her retirement a few years ago. She has also held several board assignments, including for UITP in Brussels and Samtrafiken. Today, she is Vice Chair of OK ekonomisk förening, where she sees her mission as driving the transition away from fossil fuels, and she also works as an evaluator for Vinnova.
“I’ve worked with public transport my entire life, and now that I’ve stepped back from active employment, I stay up to date with developments through Vinnova and through contacts with various people. It’s such an exciting time we’re in – this paradigm shift where we talk about mobility in a different way than we used to talk about public transport,” she says.
Passionate about collaboration
Collaboration is something she is passionate about. Already when K2 was founded, she was involved and saw the value of a place where researchers and practitioners in the public transport sector could meet. The close-to-practice research is one of the things she sees as K2’s great strengths, along with its interdisciplinary approach.
“This, combined with the fact that K2 also offers education and courses and brings together researchers and those who can apply the knowledge in practice – and that it actively disseminates its knowledge beyond academia.”
K2’s new focus on collective mobility, with public transport as its backbone, is something she sees as an exciting development.
“When we adopt this broader perspective, where additional actors are also involved, a meeting place is truly needed. What K2 has done so far has been excellent, and now the development continues. I look forward to continuing to work with collective mobility.”
What do you think you can particularly contribute as Chair of the Board?
“I have extensive experience in collaboration – in bringing people together. And I think I’ve done that successfully in my previous professional roles. I see the opportunity to continue doing that – to get people to want to collaborate. Above all, to bring practitioners and the research community together.”
Text: Anna Maria Erling
Photo: Helena Engström