EQT's Conni Jonsson - building a global private equity firm the Nordic way

It all comes back to the DNA. The firms that know who they are will know who you'd be. You can learn a lot about an investment firm by listening to what they say. Alco's mainstreams, AGM Originals, the DNA Capturing Culture, is dedicated to capturing the DNA of a firm by listening to what they say. The first season of the DNA starts at QT, a global investment firm started in Stockholm in 1994 that has over €270,000,000,000 in AUM. I sat down for conversations with nine EET executives in Stockholm during the summer at their annual investor meeting. Each executive came from different parts of the firm and different parts of the world. Each had fascinating backgrounds and stories about how they ended up in private markets and working to build EQT. But there was a single through line threaded throughout all the discussions. The consistency and frequency that each executive talked about the firm's mission, vision, culture, and values. Episode one of season one, the DNA, stars stars Connie Janssen, founder of Cherpers VQT. Connie, welcome to the show. Thank you. Good to be here. Well, no. Thank you for having me here in Stockholm. I think it's fascinating setting to discuss so much of what you've built at EQT, how you've built a global investment firm, but really rooted in Nordic heritage and part of the Wallenberg family heritage as well. I'd love for you to start with your background. How did you end up getting into private equity? I grew up on a farm. I was the youngest boy of four in this family, a very classical farming family. I was on that farm every day until I was 16 years old. Every day. And I was in an airplane for the first time when I was, like, 18 or 19 years old. So I sort of have a very sort of strange and different background. And then I accidentally ended up working for the Wallenbergs, And, it was a tricky journey for me in the beginning because I tried to be as smart and as informed and as good looking like everybody else. And that's why I gave up and said, if I'm gonna make this, why don't I try to be myself? How did you be yourself? Well, try not to be somebody else, to be honest to myself, be honest to my values, my background, where I came from, and how I was different because I think it was clear after a while that it was a plus to be different. When you're young and when you're immature, you think that's a negative to be different because you all would like to look like everybody else. But in my case, I figured out that to make it into success for myself, I needed to be different because I won't ever be able to be as good as the others are on what they were. So if we take that concept, you were …