Aiming for the top

After 14 years in Japan, LiU alumnus Magnus Nervé is aiming to establish a subsidiary of the Swedish company Haglöfs in Asia’s leading outdoor market. His background includes a passion for mountaineering.

Magnus Nervé has scaled many of the world’s highest peaks. They taught him how important it is to prepare properly and, when the climbing gets intense, to remain calm. In short: to run through the available options and analyse realistic alternatives, for example, the option of turning back.

“I have learned that the mountain will still be there,” he says.

However, he isn’t the kind of guy to shirk a challenge.

In autumn 1993, Nervé was one of the first eleven students to attend the new Japanese syllabus at the civil engineering programme in Industrial Economics, without knowing very much about Japan or the Japanese language.

“The teaching was good, but it was difficult for us to adapt to something as new and different as the Japanese culture,” he says. Nervé adds that the current Swedish ambassador in Japan, Lars Vargö, was one of the popular principal lecturers during the course; he had a lot to teach them about Japanese history and politics.

Nervé has lived in Japan for the last 14 years. He has a family there; a house an hour south of Tokyo, and a new job for the Swedish firm Haglöfs. He was recently offered the task of building a subsidiary in Japan, which is the leading outdoor market in Asia.

“The majority of the Haglöfs range has been available here for a long time, so we have a strong position to start from. In a way Japan is like Norway. 80 percent of the country is restful, dramatic wilderness, and Japanese customers are very knowledgeable and quality-conscious.”

Now Nervé is going to introduce the entire range to several of the leading outdoor chains and also open the company’s own brand stores. Included in his plans are six new shops, events for new collections and sponsoring climbers and professional guides.

“I have reached the point in my career where I want to have a job that I really enjoy and think is fun,” he says.

His career was flying before he even graduated.

As the Japanese syllabus at Linköping University’s Institute of Technology (LITH) was so new, there was a shortage of internships in Japan when the autumn term of the third year was approaching.

“I managed to arrange a place for myself at ABB in Japan, yet only for six months. This left a six-month gap until the fourth year started at LiTH.”

Nervé took the opportunity to go to the US and the University of Miami for a term, which turned into a year. It was an intense twelve months and he took courses that suited his Swedish Master of Science degree while simultaneously studying for a Master’s of Business Administration (MBA).

He also met a Japanese student who would become his wife.

Nervé never came back to Sweden, apart from short visits. Tokyo was waiting and a job at Ericsson.

“I was allowed to write my thesis within the framework of the job, and that was great. It was about the emerging mobile telecom markets in Japan an the West,” he says.

In 2000 Ny Teknik magazine in Sweden wrote about “young Swedes” who were involved in kick-starting the mobile Internet revolution in Japan, where the technology was in the vanguard of technical development.

Nervé was one of the people interviewed in the article. At the time he worked for the Japanese firm Cybird, which creates custom mobile services; the work included consultancy in the Middle East.

“The company was founded by the Japanese equivalent of the Swede Jonas Birgersson”, says Nervé with a chuckle. “The IT bubble burst in Japan too.”

His career has constantly taken new directions, with no shortage of job offers. He had brief stints at Reebok and Bodyshop (in Singapore), prior to that Ikea contacted him to establish a presence in Japan.

Nervé became part of a team of ten that launched the venture in 2003.

“I took on lots of different roles, ranging from assuming responsibility for IT and administrative routines to bank contacts regarding loans and even buying the staff coffee machines,” he says.

He became project manager for the launch of two Ikea stores (now five) and when he left Ikea, after a six-year stint, the total number of employees had increased to 2,500.

The project involved a lot of work and a lot of overtime. In between projects he could take time off; that’s where mountaineering enters the frame.

“I started off by going on simple hikes. The Japanese scenery is amazing, so my hikes became longer and higher.”

His biggest challenge to date is Cho Oyu in Nepal, the world’s sixth-highest peak at 8,201 metres.

“When you’re in a snowstorm at seven thousand metres you can’t get too agitated and only see the problems. You need to stay calm without slowing down.”

It’s great leadership training, and Nervé has held training courses on this theme.

The highest mountains in South America, Africa and Europe have all been ticked off his list.

“For me it’s not about reaching the top at any cost. My goal is to learn to survive.”

Text Gunilla Pravitz
Private pictures
From LiU magazine no 2 2012

• Name Magnus Nervé
• Education Master of Science in Industrial Economics International, first cohort, 1993 MBA, University of Miami
• Lives South of Tokyo with his wife and two girls aged five and nine.
• Work Country Manager for Haglöfs in Japan
• Leisure interests Mountaineering. Keeps exciting aquarium fish like lionfish, Moray eels and sharks.
• Fond memory of LiU Studying for exams with friends, especially Japanese exams. There are five of us who remain friends.
• Typically Japanese People stay calm and stick together. For example, following the huge earthquake in 2011, electricity never needed to be rationed. Every company and individual took their responsibility and turned off their appliances.