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Anna Kinberg Batra has given two friends top jobs at the County Administrative Board in Stockholm.
Internal emails show her handpicking one of them and asking the managers under her to give him the job.
“Now I would like to hire Gunnar,” she writes.
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full screenGunnar Ekman, management consultant. Photo: Press photo
County Governor Anna Kinberg Batra has received harsh criticism for having recruited two friends to top jobs at the County Administrative Board in Stockholm. One job was only advertised through a note at reception, the other was not advertised at all.
Aftonbladet has taken part in email exchanges concerning the second job. A time-limited job with the title “organizational developer” and which went to the management consultant Gunnar Ekman.
In September of last year, Anna Kinberg Batra sent an email to several high-ranking managers in the management of the authority, among them county director Åsa Ryding and planning manager Anna Borgs. She writes that she wants to hire Ekman and that the HR manager at the agency receives a copy of the email “for any tips on how this suits us to post”.
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full screen Anna Kinberg Batra, Governor of Stockholm. Photo: Peter Wixtröm
An excellent conversation
“I have had an excellent conversation with Dr. Gunnar Ekman, whom I have spoken to all three of you about before in different ways. Gunnar was my teacher in organizational development at HHS and I helped him a few years later to write the book From talk to results, which was the leadership book of the year in 2003, 20-year anniversary this year, and we have kept in touch over the years”. she writes initially.
She further writes that Gunnar Ekman has good conditions to help the management team with development and review of the organization.
“Now I would like to hire Gunnar for both of the above processes and have therefore asked him for a quote for possible collaboration.” “As a decision on procurement, I can refer to a larger assignment for the Swedish Tax Agency that Gunnar now has.”
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Monthly salary of 90,000
But the position was never procured, instead Gunnar Ekman was hired on a temporary contract with a monthly salary of SEK 90,000.
The decision to employ Ekman was made on February 21, 2024 – a month after Kinberg Batra issued a directive on savings requirements for department heads at the authority.
“All recruitment of employees and consultants must first be tested. This means that a preparation group prepares and prioritizes the agency’s recruitment needs, across departmental boundaries,” says a dispatch that Anna Kinberg Batra made on the agency’s intranet.
However, the appointment of Gunnar Ekman was not tested by the preparation group, something that the trade union Saco-S criticized.
– The employer must explain to us how this is possible, when all other employment must be tried and when all others must save, Susanna Sass Jonsson, board member of the trade union, previously told Aftonbladet.
Aftonbladet has asked questions about Ekman’s employment as the head of communications for the County Administrative Board in Stockholm. He asks to come back with an answer.