Company: Mini Rodini AB
Turnover: Approx. SEK + 200 000 000
Employees: 80
Hi Håkan, you have been the CEO at Mini Rodini for the past four years, can you tell us a little about your time at Mini Rodini so far?
After having worked with brands such as Levi’s, Dockers, Reebock and Cheap Monday I started my journey at Mini Rodini back in 2018. I don’t think I have ever worked with a brand this well-positioned and with such fantastic values. We are a great team and the founders are very passionate. It is both fun and rewarding!
How has the past 1.5 years affected Mini Rodini and how do you feel about the future?
Last year was in many ways a challenging but also exciting year. We had already made major investments and changes to gain momentum in our own e-com, which faced a number of challenges, back in 2019. During the second half of 2019, the investments paid off and we started to see good growth. Parallel to this we had also made some changes in our organization, which we saw the effect of the second quarter of 2020. Combined this gave us a better starting point for 2020.
However, we had our absolute largest share of sales in wholesale, which gave some uncertainty in not knowing what customers we could expect to deliver to in the autumn. We immediately started working based on a worst case scenario and took action based on that.
By the end of the summer, our results were much stronger than the year before. This gave us the courage to switch up our online marketing, which ended up giving us a real boost.
For us 2020 was a better year than 2019 and on top of that, we found a model that we can continue to grow with both in wholesale but especially in our own e-com.
My experience is that the situation around Covid accelerated the strategies we had started to work with and that we are very strongly positioned now.
In other words, you have had quite an exciting journey at Mini Rodini and it goes without saying that the right person at the right place has been crucial for you. Can you tell us a little about how you work with external partners in your recruitments?
We are in a position where we have the luxury of getting great responses to our own ads, which means that we don’t normally use external partners. However, we sometimes turn to an external partner regarding certain c-level positions and specialist roles.
In those cases, we choose someone that we believe are in the best position to find us the right candidate in combination with previous experience. One aspect that is important and can be a real time saver is to choose someone who understands our business model and our brand. It significantly increases the chances of ending up with the right candidate.
For our Chief Customer Experience that we recently recruited, CIP already had a great understanding of our market and we quickly landed in a common view of what our business needed. During the process, CIP worked at a good speed and gave us continuous information during the whole process, which they were also flexible to adjust based on our timetable. Greatly appreciated!
Thanks Håkan that feels great to hear and we are looking forward to following Mini Rodini’s journey going forward!
The CIP team
About Mini Rodini:
Mini Rodini is a children’s wear brand, born and raised with the vision to make clothes kids love to wear without compromising on environmental and social aspects of production. The company was founded in 2006 by Cassandra Rhodin as a tribute to all children, their imagination and sense that anything is possible. Since the start Mini Rodini has been a part of creating a new way for kids to dress that is comfortable, inclusive, creative, unisex and sustainable – always with flair and attitude.
Visit Mini Rodini’s website here
