Smarter Worklife
Board professional, venture capitalist, international speaker, wife - and father of three. Caroline Farberger's unique experience of leading a large company first as a man - and then as a woman - was a wake-up call. Since then, diversity and inclusion issues have been a top priority on her desk.
Being true to herself is important to Caroline Farberger, and if she is true to herself, she has always felt an attraction towards the feminine, to dress in beautiful dresses, have beautiful hair and lip gloss. Even as a seven-year-old boy, Caroline Farberger looked at the pictures from the king and Silvia's wedding and wished that she too could dress up and feel beautiful.
"What held me back all these years was a fear of not being accepted by the business community, because no one had done a gender reassignment before. I couldn't name a single role model in any country that had done it from a CEO position and didn't think the business community would tolerate or be able to handle it.
At 50, however, Caroline, who was then still called Carl, could no longer hold the façade together. In the spring of 2017, she walked around town dressed as a woman for the first time – and suddenly all the pieces fell into place.
"This is me! This is how I want to meet the world! Once I opened Pandora's box, it was impossible to close it again," says Caroline smiling, while the makeup artist puts the finishing touches on the photoshoot.
We meet at the office hotel in Sollentuna outside Stockholm, where she has her workplace, to talk about the journey from Carl to Caroline, but mainly to raise questions Caroline Farberger chooses to have on her desk today: equality, diversity and inclusion in working life.
On 13 September 2018, life changed forever for Carl Farberger, then CEO of ICA Insurance. That day he came out and told me that from now on he would be called Caroline and live as a woman.
"When I came home from work the day before, I knew that I had passed the point of no return, so I hurried to paint my nails, because I was afraid that I would be shaky later in the evening," she says smiling.
Om Caroline
Boron:
House in Sigtuna
Family:
Wife and three children, 18, 18 and 13 years old
Job:
Lecturer, Chairman of the Board, Board Member and Board Advisor
In his spare time:
Reading homework with the children, spending time with the family and renovating the home
The next day, she stepped into the office for the very first time as Caroline, the tall, well-dressed and well-made woman who now eloquently talks about her dramatic transformation.
"It was the greatest day of my life. I had saved my hair for a year and practiced applying makeup and wearing high heels. I wasn't allowed to slip on my heels, because it would look pathetic.
Still, she felt like "Bambi on slippery ice" that morning and wanted everything to be "business as usual".
"I had just changed the packaging and wanted to make it clear that I was focusing on the business and the job – not on my appearance, which of course I very much did," she admits.
The news of the gender reassignment went unnoticed by no one in the business community. Since then, Caroline Farberger has had time for both morning sofas, newspaper interviews, radio programs and book releases. It has been a transformative journey.
"It took time for it to completely sink in what it meant to be a woman and a leader in a world where men are still the norm. The norm is the category that holds power, and in our part of the world it is a heterosexual man who belongs to the Christian culture and celebrates Christmas and Easter. If you deviate from this in any way, it becomes more difficult to get the same opportunities, and it is difficult to understand if you belong to the norm. I didn't understand it myself during my 50 years as a man.
In retrospect, she sees how she has been shaped by how to "should" behave as a man, and CEO, in order to achieve success.
"I chased a persona of being a successful business leader, ultimately because I believed it was the way to happiness, but happiness can only come from one place – from within myself, not through external attributes and recognitions." says Caroline Farberger.
On a personal level, the realization was striking.
"I realized what a privileged career I had by belonging to the norm in the business world. Other women's stories from working life made me humble and made me realize that the leadership style I had as CEO made it easier for normative people to influence and make themselves heard. The realisation that she herself had been unconsciously excluding as a manager was painful.
"It hurt mentally that I had been blind to it, that competent colleagues had not come into their own because I had not given them the right conditions," she says self-critically.
It was only as a woman – after 50 years as a man – that Caroline Farberger understood the importance of inclusive leadership. Today, she is an internationally sought-after lecturer on the subject and uses her platform to increase knowledge about diversity and inclusion in working life.
She describes the process of going from man to woman in one word: liberating.
"It felt like I threw off my mask and could finally be myself."
His wife of over 20 years, Ylva, has been the biggest support on the journey towards becoming Caroline. The three children have also been accepting and supportive – and have decided themselves that they want to continue calling Caroline for dad. A person who dares to be themselves also becomes a better manager, because to live authentically is to live sustainably, and it was also this insight that finally made Caroline Farberger defy the fear of not being accepted if she were herself fully:
"I asked myself 'what role model am I for my own children if I don't live my life authentically?'.
Like Carl, she lived by the masculine macho ideals she had learned as a child: not showing emotions and vulnerability, hiding pain and difficulties. Like Caroline, she has new role models: authentic people who dare to be grounded in their own values without worrying about what others will think, people who dare to stand up for their opinions even in headwinds and when it is tactically disadvantageous.
"If you, as a leader, hide behind a façade and are not authentic, you risk becoming irrelevant and predictable. When I, as a leader, dare to show myself vulnerable, it opens up for my colleagues to also dare to be themselves. An authentic leader lives according to his or her values. That is the leadership I advocate.
Unfortunately, there is still a long way to go towards a society where inclusion is the norm and everyone realizes that diversity not only enriches, but is the way forward.
"I'm not surprised at where we are today, because I can recognize how I reasoned as a man, how ignorant I was. We see diversity as a problem rather than an asset, but the employees are the most important resource in a company, and as CEO it is my job to create maximum conditions for my employees, to staff teams that complement each other and have different approaches. Because differences create more innovative business solutions. However, this requires an inclusive business climate, according to Caroline Farberger.
Change must start from the top – it is the managers who are responsible for the workplace culture. Caroline Farberger is convinced that an inclusive culture leads to better decisions, business solutions and results.
Therefore, she is seriously concerned that our society is heading in a dangerous direction with increased polarization with consequences such as exclusion and crime. She highlights the importance of each and every one of us actively contributing to building a more inclusive society.
– Who do you choose to include in your networks at work and privately? Who can come to a job interview, who do you invite to the meeting or to dinner? The journey begins with your own behaviour, according to Caroline, an insight she herself has gained the hard way.
Since she became a woman, Caroline chooses to have other things on her desk than what the CEO Carl had.
At that time, it was about profit in the company. Caroline now works on a number of boards and also devotes herself to lecturing and holding workshops on diversity and inclusion with group management and senior executives in the business community both in Sweden and internationally.
"I reach out with my messages to men in the business world in a way that would not have been as effective if I had been a biological woman. The men find it easier to relate to me because we have the same background. In a strange way, I therefore become a more credible sender that they allow themselves to be influenced of. I can still talk about lumper memories," she says with a wry smile.
According to Caroline Farberger, the business community must seriously see equality, diversity and inclusion as business issues in order to be competitive in the long term.
"We must take advantage of the full competence base. We are not there right now. This is not a soft HR issue or a sustainability issue. The value of diversity is very much a management issue – and a purely business issue. There is a right way and an easy way forward. Now it's just a matter of choosing," says Caroline Farberger.
I arrive at work around 8.15. The first thing I do is get a cup of coffee and put the lunch box in the fridge. I always bring my computer, phone and lunch box (unless I'm going to lunch in town for a meeting). My office is a height-adjustable table in an open-plan office. I don't use a separate screen, but work on my laptop.
1. Be genuinely curious about the people around you, regardless of your roles in the workplace. What experiences do they have that you don't have? What holidays do they celebrate? Explore the unique qualities of your colleagues and learn from them, not only out of personal interest, but also translate it into utility for the company. How can you leverage these experiences to create better solutions for customers?
2. Take responsibility for the culture in which you work. If you see or hear someone who makes an inappropriate joke or is not inclusive – speak up! Stand up for your colleague, also for the sake of the company. Help new colleagues feel seen and welcome. Make others feel more included so they dare to share themselves.
3. Reflect on which ones are included in your social networks. The risk is that they are people of the same kind as yourself. Think about how you can contribute to a more inclusive, less segregated society by expanding your networks.
4. Let out those who do not belong to the workplace norm. As a manager, be extra sensitive to those who do not belong to the dominant gender, skin colour, religion or sexuality and pay attention to who is heard. Who do you listen to? How can you balance the dynamics of the room and highlight all the competencies?
