Léa Humbert – CMO Consumer Trainee

What made you apply for the trainee role at Telenor Sweden?
– I think that the structure of the Management Trainee Programme in Telenor Sweden is quite unique. I believe that being a young graduate and having the chance to follow a CxO to his/her daily meetings as well as being part of the strategic discussions of a large company is a privilege and convinced me to apply.

Give a brief summary of your role, what is it about?
– I am the Consumer Management Trainee and thus have the chance to follow Christian Thrane, the Head of Consumer. The Consumer division is the biggest one in Telenor Sweden and consists of pure marketing activities to Analytics and AI or even B2B sales. The core of my role is to follow my leader to his daily meeting and activities to observe his leadership and stakeholder management skills. In the meantime, I have my ongoing trainee tasks such as preparing the material for the meetings, doing some reporting or coordinating workshop sessions. On top of that, the trainee role gives me the opportunity to join the projects I feel interested in within my department. For example, for the next 3 months, I will dedicate 20% of my time working on a business case for Vimla, Telenor´s mobile fighter brand. One sure thing is that my days as a trainee never look the same.

What is the best thing about being a trainee at Telenor?
– The diversity of tasks and flexibility of the role as I get exposed to a wide range of topics. Being the Consumer trainee, I jump from meetings where we discuss the next campaign launch to pure contract negotiation meetings where my leader deals with large companies such as Apple or to discussions with Telenor Group regarding the next strategic directions for Telenor Sweden.

What is your biggest challenge so far as a trainee?
– One of the biggest challenges I have had so far has been to get on track with a totally new and rather technical industry. I never thought I would be working in the telecommunication industry and thus had to deep dive into the technical aspects of it to understand the core of our business. Trust me, when I attended my first meetings about spectrum acquisition, it was very difficult to follow!

What career opportunities, short term and long term can you see that the trainee program can give you?
– Being exposed every day to people with different backgrounds, experience and expertise but also people from different hierarchical levels allows me to build a strong internal network that will soon help me to grow in the company. When looking at the roles previous trainees have taken, it is easy to see that the trainee year is the best way to kick-off a promising career in Telenor. On a more long-term perspective, I think that the international presence of the company can also give me the opportunity to take a role in another business unit or at Telenor Group.

What makes Telenor a good employer? Give examples.
– Although I am not from Sweden, I felt included from day one. Telenor Sweden places its employees at the center and cares about the well-being of everyone. On top of that, the young and international atmosphere also contributes to the overall great experience I have had with Telenor so far.

What would you say to someone considering applying for trainee next year?
– If you want to kick-off your career with a challenging experience, if you want to have access to a unique status that a freshly graduate student could not have otherwise and if you want to be part of a company that never sleeps, apply to the Management Trainee Programme at Telenor Sweden. It is worth mentioning that speaking Swedish is not necessary since the corporate language is English and that international profiles are more than welcome.