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In
1999, two years before Pernille Spiers-Lopez was vaulted to the
presidency of IKEA North America, the then-human-resources director
of the Swedish furnishings phenomenon, suffered a medical calamity.
 One
of her arms went numb and sudden chest pain ambushed her. In the
ambulance enroute to the hospital, Spiers-Lopez figured she was
paying for her success with a heart attack. When the emergency-room
doctor told her that her condition was not cardial but a reaction
to stress, a mentor who was with her told Spiers-Lopez that one
day she’d understand that this incident was one of the biggest
gifts she’d ever been given.
He was right, of course. “I’d been in denial for some
time about my own strength level. I’d been emotionally numb,
ignored things and moved ahead, and put my family on automatic pilot.
For a few years after this incident I found it too embarrassing
to talk about. Now I’ve acted on that wake-up signal and am
working on balancing life and work.”
On days when she’s not traveling to one of the 22 IKEAs in
the U.S. or 11 in Canada, or visiting headquarters in Europe, Spiers-Lopez
is usually at her office in suburban Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania,
northwest of Philadelphia, between 8 and 8:30AM after breakfasting
with her 14-year-old daughter, and 12-year-old son. Most days at
the office are spent catching up and in meetings. One day’s
agenda included sessions with store managers a on training program,
with a prospective manager moving over from Europe, brainstorms
on new ways of working with sales teams, and a throng of sales managers
analyzing the results of the most recent employee survey.
For Spiers-Lopez, the best part of the job is indulging her interest
in what IKEA sells and the company she keeps—that is, pride
in the brand itself and in the team around her as they succeed.
The down side is the constant barrage of “things coming at
you all the time and struggling to keep from becoming overwhelmed.”
Spiers-Lopez admits that she is by nature a perfectionist “and
at any given time, nothing is perfect,” she laughs. “I
have learned and am continuing to learn how to wing things.”
She was born Pernille Spiers in a small town outside Arhus, Denmark’s
second-largest city. Her father was an ophthalmologist. (He died
six months ago.) Her mother stayed home raising their four children
and nurturing her second daughter’s interest in home décor.
One sister is a firefighter; another works for Weight Watchers.
Her only brother is with the PGA. Growing up she dreamed about coming
to America, which beckoned with excitement. (All the family emmigrated
to America and all her siblings married Americans.)
After obtaining a master’s degree in journalism she decided
that while she loved writing features, she didn’t enjoy producing
news pieces under pressure or contemplating the anticipated “years
on the pavement” she’d need to log before landing the
feature-writing job she’d craved.
So she opted for adventure and travel. Hoping to export Danish-designed
decorative furniture, she joined her brother in Florida and spent
two years setting up a network of distributors and wholesalers before
running out of energy and money.
 Next
stop was a $5-an-hour job with a furniture chain called The Door
Store in Coral Gables. Within two years she was supervising its
24 branches. Then she took a job with Stor, an IKEA imitator that
was ultimately purchased by IKEA. Here she learned the importance
of fashioning an original look. “When you copy someone else
you don’t know how to fix things if they don’t go exactly
right,” she says. And here she also met Jason Lopez, who was
working at Stor part-time and whom she married in 1989. He is a
director of secondary education at a local Philadelphia suburb.
Shortly before IKEA purchased Stor, Spiers-Lopez jumped ship. IKEA
was launching on the West Coast and she began as a sales manager
for the West Coast stores. In 1993 she was transferred to Pittsburgh
to manage the IKEA store there. Her husband found a job there as
a middle school principal. Four years later the company sent Spiers-Lopez
to a businesswomen’s leadership conference in New York City.
She returned anxious to amend the composition of the management
board from 13 white men and herself, and to change the company’s
culture.
The president promoted her to head of human resources, where she
initiated a full-press diversity drive, pushed through full benefits
for domestic partners and full medical and dental benefits for part-time
employees, and initiated flextime, job-sharing and telecommuting
programs. Staff turnover plunged. Just as good, she says, was being
recognized by the community, for its policies. Four years later,
despite the fact that she had no formal business education and had
never envisioned herself going into the corporate arena, she was
named president of IKEA North America. Hers is the fast-growing
arm of the privately held Swedish global-retailing giant with the
sales for IKEA US already at 15.5 billion USD.
Whether it continues to grow at its meteoric pace or slows depends
somewhat on outside forces, such as the declining dollar. But hurdles
are constant, says Spiers-Lopez. “Two months after I started
in this job 9/11 happened. In Canada we were hit with SARS. Touch
economies come and go. They’re all part of life. The true
challenge is how we work together to overcome them.”
The other true challenge is whether she can resist shouldering
a too-heavy load and bear the disappointment of things moving too
slowly. “I avoid business travel on weekends, try to keep
regular hours at work and leave the job at the office,” she
says. “For years I’ve struggled with questions of whether
I’m a good mother, a good friend, and a good wife.”
Recently, on separate occasions, her husband and children have demonstrated
that they are solidly in her corner. Still, she admits that she
lives “with a sense of urgency; I want things done quickly.
But in big organizations you have to be careful not to move too
many things too quickly. Elevators have to stop at every floor.”
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