Interview with Saab’s Henrik Petersson

Could you briefly describe your responsibilities at Saab and what roles you’ve had within ASD?

Currently I am acting in the capacity as Sherpa and Senior Advisor to the President/CEO of the Saab Group. Since my start with ASD some 20 years ago I have served as Chair for the Export Control Committee from 2010 until 2015, and as Vice Chair to the Defence Business Unit since 2019.

What has been the main motivation for you to be involved in ASD?

To be active and engage in ASD, as well as national industrial associations, is important due to a number of reasons, and it is more important than ever due to the geopolitical situation with war in Europe. Together with likeminded industries we have a stronger voice in advocating our needs and specificities as well as to explain our raison d'être and the importance of our main mission in keeping society and people safe.

What has been the most rewarding aspect of your involvement with ASD working bodies?

Well, that is a difficult answer since there are rewarding aspects from both a company perspective as well as from a personal. If I have to choose one personal it would be to meet colleagues and stakeholders from different countries and cultures which has widened my own perspectives and increased my knowledge about the world. And of course, I have made many new friends over the years.

I would also say that when we get together as one association with one strong voice, for example like on the access to finance topic, it is rewarding to see that we can have an impact on the debate and how the policies and legislations are formed.

Looking back over your time and work with ASD, what do you consider the most significant milestone or success in the defence sector in recent years?

For many years we pleaded for the importance of the defence sector and the urgent needs we saw. However, there was little to no interest and certainly no sense of urgency. By staying engaged and persistent, combined with the changed geopolitical situation, we have now a very different situation. So, we, as ASD, have been very successful in advocating for our raison d'être and getting acceptance for it, this a major shift. 

We used to have plenty of time to prepare, no urgency and insufficient defence budgets to do anything. Today we have no time to prepare as the war is on European soil again.The urgency is definitely there, the defence budgets are increasing towards 2% of GDP and beyond and we see many EU initiatives leading in the right direction.

To underline the importance of defence, we now have a dedicated EU Commissioner and defence is a top priority for the incoming Commission. I would like to think that ASD played an important part in making this happen.

Personally, I often reflect on, despite all the things we are doing, if we are doing enough and doing it fast enough. Time will tell.

What role does ASD play in and for the European aerospace, security and defence industry landscape, and how has it evolved over time?

From my perspective ASD is established as the credible and trusted interlocutor in Brussels for defence, security and civil aerospace. ASD is also a global interlocuter when it comes to civil aviation through ICCAIA. 

On top of that, ASD has an important role to play in setting standards through the S-Series specifications. This has not always been the case and its due to hard work over the last decade or so that has rendered ASD that position. To hold that position also comes with a great responsibility for us to be proactive and persistent on all the relevant files.

From your perspective, what are the biggest challenges that ASD and the European defence sector will face in the next decade, and how is ASD positioned to address them?

As I said previously, we live in a very different reality than just two or three years ago. The expectations on ASD, and us as industry, from Member states, EU stakeholders and the public, as well as the ASD members are higher than ever before. So, there is a challenge in how ASD will now be able to adapt itself to this new reality.

In my view, we need to become more strategic, proactive and persistent in all our activities and portfolios. We will need to come together as one, set our differences aside and act more like Europeans.

What the biggest challenge is for us as industries is a difficult question to have a short answer on. To pick something, I would say we will ultimately be judged on how quickly we ramp up to our customers’ expectations on increased deliveries to meet demand while we in parallel develop the next generation state-of-the-art systems and equipment, while being globally competitive; in other words: how well we will live up to our raison d'être!