The Platinum Egg 2024: Sophia Lindholm.
Sophia grows up in the heart of Gothenburg. After a bit of time spent snowboarding in Canada and the Alps, she ends up in Malmö, where a new advertising school has just opened. New students receive a brand new MacBook Air, and a brand new MacBook Air is exactly what Sophia wants. Thus she almost accidentally finds herself part of Sweden’s first digital creative education programme.... Later, on moving to Stockholm, Sophia discovers it’s tough to get a job at an advertising agency without having gone to Berghs. The shortest Berghs course she can find is operational project management, so that’s what she takes. Her goal all the while is to work as a creative, but her time as a production manager proves a valuable experience. After jobs at Ogilvy and later B-Reel, Sophia finds her way to Forsman & Bodenfors. There her talent is recognized and she is offered a creative position. At last she has come full circle. Sophia is a creative who always starts with the idea, never the channel. It is ideas and the change they can create that inspire her. She does not have a traditional advertising background, and thus has no preconceived notions about where ideas may arise. At Forsman & Bodenfors she advances to Head of Creative. From the late 2000s on, she is involved in most of the agency’s award-winning work. It starts with her first Golden Egg, “Dear Steve Jobs” for SVT Play, and her first Cannes Grand Prix, “See Yourself in the Future” for AMF Pension. Then Volvo Trucks comes thundering onto the scene, and Sophia and her team inspire the whole world to talk about trucks. “Epic Split” is the most talked-about campaign, but many other major successes among the Volvo Trucks campaigns share Sophia as a common denominator. She is proudest of global campaigns focusing on women’s rights, such as “Marriage Market” for the Japanese skincare brand SKII. It inspires an important debate about the unreasonable pressure on young Chinese women to get married. “The E.V.A. Initiative” is another example in which Volvo Cars shares the research that makes them a world leader, and which can make all cars safer for women. Of all the recognitions Sophia Lindholm has received, perhaps the most notable is Fast Company placing her in 14th place on their list of the Most Creative People in Business in 2014. (Jerry Seinfeld had to make do with 26th.)