The board behind Aleva’s growth

Elderly care in Sweden is an industry where much has long been done the same way. When the entrepreneurs Frida and Aron Starkman started Aleva in Umeå, in northern Sweden, that was exactly what they wanted to challenge. They felt the industry often followed a fairly fixed rulebook, and that things could be done differently.

The ambition was to build a business where older people don’t just get help with everyday life, but can go on living a rich life.

A little over ten years later, Aleva Sverige provides home care and personal assistance, and develops new ways to improve older people’s quality of life. As the company has grown, so has the board’s way of working. An important part of that development is the chair, Eva Wetterstrand.

An external chair for the next phase

When Aleva began to grow, the founders realised the board needed to take the next step. They wanted to bring in an external chair: someone with experience of both business and the care sector, but with no ties to the company. Through Styrelseakademien, a Swedish network for board members, they were put in touch with Eva Wetterstrand. She has led the board since 2016.

Eva has a broad background in the service sector and international business. Her career spans management roles at SAS, telecoms, software and the public sector, and she has long experience of the care sector, including at the healthcare company Aleris. Today she is director of operations at Österåker Municipality.

“It’s been fantastic to follow the entrepreneurs. They were good from the start, but over these years they’ve become very professional, with a sharp management team, clear roles and an increasingly structured way of working,” she says.

From local home care to an innovation company

At Aleva’s core is home care in Umeå and Nordmaling. Within a year or so the company also started a personal assistance business, and the group has kept developing.

One of its latest initiatives is Stunder.se, a digital platform that helps improve older people’s quality of life by matching activities to social needs. The service was developed together with partners including the innovation hub Uminova, the research institute RISE and Region Västerbotten.

“A lot of it is about tackling loneliness among older people. How can you create more meaningful moments in everyday life?” Eva says.

The ambition is for the platform to scale nationally and, in time, internationally too.

Board work that has developed over time

Aleva is owner-led, and besides Eva the board has three members, all of them owners. That makes the dynamic a little different from many larger companies.

“In owner-led companies there’s often a very strong commitment,” Eva says. “People have taken personal risks and are close to the business.”

The board meets once a month, alternating between online meetings and meetings in person. Over the years its way of working has become more structured.

“We’ve got better at setting goals, better at setting aside time for strategy, and at keeping a closer eye on what’s happening around us.”

The work has also been noticed outside the company. In 2023, Styrelseakademien Norr nominated Eva Wetterstrand for Guldklubban, the “golden gavel”, an award that recognises outstanding chairs.

As the company grew, the board needed more structure

As the company grew, so did the amount of information. Reports, annual reports, share registers, meeting materials and strategy documents began to spread across different systems and email threads.

“The board work was getting quite extensive, so we wanted to separate it from the day-to-day systems,” she says.

The goal was clear: the board needed one shared place where everything was gathered. That was when they started using Hippoly.

One place for the board to gather

Today Hippoly is the board’s central workspace, the board portal where meeting agendas, documents, reports and history are kept together.

It becomes a bit like a campfire that everyone gathers around.

The external accounting firm, for example, uploads reports straight into the system, and everyone on the board has access to the same information.

“It’s such a relief not to have to hunt for documents in different emails.”

Communication between meetings has become easier too, now that it happens in Hippoly’s messages and discussions.

“Chat and posts work really well. You can discuss things between meetings without it getting buried in the usual flood of email.”

Better prepared for due diligence

Gathering the board’s documentation digitally has another effect. It leaves the company better prepared for future growth.

Once everything is structured and digitised, you’re more or less ready for due diligence at any time.

Taking the way of working with her

Eva later became chair of the family-owned care group Skåningegård, and she brought the way of working with her.

“They had the same need for structure there. So I just said: we’re using Hippoly here too.”

It didn’t take long to see the result.

“Now we often just say: ‘It’s in Hippoly.’”

For Eva, who is involved in several organisations, there’s another advantage.

“It’s incredibly handy to be able to gather all your board roles in a single portal. It makes it easier to keep roles and information apart, while everything is easy to reach in one place.”

Making room for what really matters

For Eva, a board’s work is about more than structure and meeting routines. It’s about creating the conditions for development.

“When the board work runs well, you can spend less time on administration and more time on the big questions: where the company is heading and how to develop the business.”

And in Aleva’s case, that development is ultimately about something very concrete: making life a little better for people.

“In the end, it’s all about older people and the people who need support in their everyday lives. If we can help create more meaningful moments in their lives, then we’ve succeeded.”