[ALUMNI SUCCESS STORY] - Mia Anfinsen

Read the full interview below:

Mia Anfinsen

Head of marketing, Klim

School : INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF MONACO 

Program : MBA 

Year : 2012 

City : Berlin 

While Mia is aware of the utopian nature of the horizon dubbed “zero emissions,” the fight against global warming remains the cornerstone of her missions. As Head of Marketing at Klim, she brings technological innovations to help the land and those who work it. From Berlin, Mia and her team have been supporting growers in their move towards cleaner, more virtuous models, and rallying the business world to the cause of regenerative agriculture. Rather than reaping immediate benefits, the aim is to grant an offsetting “carbon credit” through these investments. Whether it be mass retailers wanting to do their part, agro-industry players looking to improve their supply chains, companies outside the sector such as solidarity banks, or farmers concerned about their acres, Mia relishes the diverse faces of the audiences with whom she interfaces. More than operations destined to be replicated on every screen and every continent, her profession requires agility on behalf of the planet – “confronted with degrading soils, erratic rainfall and failing harvests, I have the impression that Klim possesses part of the solution. I’m doing my bit to spread the word!”

Mia fell in love with nature and its boons at an early age: her childhood was spent in the unspoiled environment of Norway, among its fjords. Between coniferous forests and nourishing land, between the sea teeming with fish and the hills that make up the splendor of the surrounding area, the Trondheim region was imprinted on her. But beyond the herds and grains of her native countryside, Donald Duck comics sketched out other possibilities: “One day he was a factory worker, another he became a polar explorer – it resonated with this dream I had of living several lives in one, of discovering the world!” Mia may have remained the “village girl who takes her time,” but her odyssey began in 2007, “wide-eyed” in the Danish city of Aarhus, for a bachelor’s degree in marketing and communications. Then it was on to Monaco, where the student switched courses and changed lanes; rather than reinforcing her strengths, at the IUM she concentrated on her Achilles’ heel: “I chose the Master’s in Applied Finance because I lacked this essential dimension for understanding business issues. The teacher of this subject was so excellent that finance became a passion for me!” To make it through the four semesters in one year, Mia leaned into her inner Hermione Granger – ever at the front of the class, she even received the occasional small favor: “As I was staying very late in the school library, they ended up giving me the key! Every day, there was a quiz, a report, a test. The pace was intense, and you had to stay on top of it.” In addition to the practical case studies that introduced her to the founder of the airline easyJet, and competitions with Harvard and other universities in the same league, Mia fondly remembers it all, and above all that IUM is a hidden gem. Back in her homeland, the graduate founded a financial consulting start-up with a fellow alumnus. Her way of bringing light to uncertainty and “order to chaos”: “I also followed this approach as an amateur DJ, at underground techno parties! When I create a set, I weave the tracks together to create a continuous, coherent flow.” Her own track would be woven in Berlin. Twelve years spent in this alternative culture, twelve years involved in the start-up ecosystem before becoming Head of Marketing at Klim.

Her path may seem “winding and full of steps,” but Mia appreciates the fact that she has been able to reconcile everything by taking this new leap. Helping to develop her colleagues’ expertise, she lets them follow the compass of their hearts: “I guide, I frame, but I’m convinced that it’s essential to give people the freedom to select the projects they like and believe in.” It is a liberty that Mia also grants herself through her commitment to associations: with Japan Startup Research, she promotes female entrepreneurship in the archipelago, works alongside founders to ensure that impulse and innovation are followed by results, when her visit is not wrapped up over matcha tea and yakisoba – “whether in food, crafts or technology, this civilization fascinates me with its level of attention.” Through the pages of great writers such as Steinbeck, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Mia likes to plumb the depths of the soul; she feels that hers is now like that “open sea,” smooth and uncluttered, a mirror to the sky. This is how she reaches that point of balance between pleasure, talent, necessity and work that the Japanese call “ikigai”.

What kept you motivated as a student, and still does today?

“The desire to understand the world around me! I have this visceral need to scratch beneath the surface. That’s what drove me, several times in the course of my career, to go into fields that were unknown to me, and to discover the incredible catalyst that is finance. The idea is not to say you’ve made it, but to keep on growing, every time!”