Implementing youth-led corporate activism

Step 1: Establish the objectives & format of the engagement

Start by defining clear objectives and an effective engagement format. Set a regular meeting cadence to facilitate high-quality exchanges and dialogue. Establishing a strong foundation with well-defined objectives and engagement plans is the crucial first pillar. Whenever possible, include a few young leaders from the early stages to define objectives and design a format. ​

1. Quarterly forum meetings:

Barriers such as a long top-down communication process may deter youth from sharing their insights and slow progress at large. Creating space for direct dialogue between senior leadership and young leaders propels change in a faster, more authentic way, and fosters trust as well as proactive youth engagement. To remove the traditional hierarchical constraints that exist within most large organizations, Young Leaders Forum was built on a format to bring together Ingka’s senior leadership with young leaders at quarterly forum meetings. These meetings are facilitated discussions centred around set topics, which are identified collaboratively with input from both senior Ingka leadership and young leaders.

In these meetings:​

• Young Leaders​
  Hear about the challenges that Ingka, and at times the corporate sector at large, are facing, and may boldly state their feedback, insights from their own experiences, and suggested actions.
• Senior Leadership​
  Receive nuanced feedback from an audience they had not regularly interacted with and may authentically engage with perspectives and voices who are not typically invited into decision making spaces.

2. Topical working groups: ​

Small groups of 3-5 young leaders who contribute to an existing project or initiative that Ingka is undertaking. The young leaders take on project-specific roles such as providing feedback for new policies being drafted or authoring a young leader portion of a report.

​3. Key-event engagements​:

Opportunities have arisen for Ingka senior leadership and young leaders to combine their voices at external key events by speaking on panels, attending sessions with other businesses, and embedding youth voices into Ingka-hosted events, such as One Home One Planet dialogues.

Step 2: Identify and recruit diverse group of young leaders

Our goal for the Ingka Young Leaders Forum was to create a truly global group with expertise spanning climate, youth mobilization, human rights, and indigenous advocacy. While diverse focal points were essential, we intentionally kept the Forum size small to foster genuine conversations and relationships. Some key success factors in identifying and recruiting the final group of young leaders include:

• Diverse backgrounds and identities
  The diversity is certainly a contributing factor to its success. When seeking out young leaders, select individuals from various backgrounds and identities. Divergent perspectives may foster challenging conversations, even among the young leaders themselves, but it is these challenging conversations that lead to growth and progress.
• Varied working experience and sectors
  Young Leaders Forum members bring a range of working experiences and expertise. Some have experience as activists on the frontlines, while some have sat in numerous boardrooms. Leverage young people’s specific areas of expertise, professional experience, and knowledge. An open call for advisors simply based on age can be performative. Focusing on the unique experiences and skill sets of advisors leads to more valuable outcomes.
• Openness, expectations and availability
  Young leaders’ willingness to engage with corporate leaders, their expectations, and availability to commit the time that’s needed are all key factors in determining who will be recruited as a Forum member. Have an open dialogue with the candidates early in the recruitment process to discuss these elements.

Step 3: Onboard and build relationships

Some young activists may initially mistrust corporate intentions, and trust is critical to valuable outcomes. Building trust requires candidness, openness, and time. Engage in people-to-people conversations, addressing concerns directly and transparently. Over time, this approach can bridge gaps and foster a trusting, collaborative environment.

Prior to officially kicking off the Ingka Young Leaders Forum, an onboarding plan and materials were mapped out and shared with the young leaders. This helped to:

• Provide Understanding and Context
  Equipping young leaders with an understanding of structures and key challenges enables them to engage in meaningful conversations. A clear understanding of the historical context of your organization will set them up for success to best advise.
• Build Community
  Fostering a sense of community among the young leaders, allowing them to collaborate as a trusted group.
• Open Channels of Communication
  Empower young leaders to analyse challenges and provide untethered feedback directly to senior leadership during meetings, and offer optional ways to communicate in the interim.
• Demonstrate Respect and Equity
  Convey Ingka’s respect for young leaders and emphasize the value they bring to the Forum.

Consider honouring young leaders with an honorarium. In Ingka’s case, this reinforced appreciation for their contributions and demonstrated a commitment to genuine engagement. The honorarium should respect the young leaders’ time commitment over the year without compromising the integrity of honest and challenging dialogue.

Step 4: Deep-dive engagement around core topics

Engaging around central topics and integrating young leaders into existing processes were key aspects of the Ingka Young Leaders Forum. While quarterly forum meetings with Ingka’s senior leadership initiated discussions, their true value lay in identifying concrete actions beyond these meetings.​

Recognizing that quarterly calls alone were insufficient, Ingka established deep-dive/topical working groups to collaborate with young leaders – taking shape as both short- and long-term engagements depending on the need. New topical working groups have emerged each year in connection to evolving global issues and fresh challenges Ingka tackles. These groups focused on various topics including:

• Corporate Transparency
  A selected group of young leaders reviewed Ingka’s Annual Summary and Sustainability Report during various drafting stages for the past two years. They authored a letter with their feedback and reflections that has been included in the report.
• Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (ED&I)
  Young leaders engaged with the ED&I team to ask questions and provide feedback on Ingka’s FY24-27 ED&I strategy before its rollout. Recognizing that younger generations have grown up in a different world, their ideas and criticisms are both necessary and valuable. Therefore, actively incorporating them when developing diversity and equity strategies becomes a significant engagement.
• Forestry
  A group of young leaders have been working with Ingka on how to enhance transparency related to the key resource wood. We invited a selected group of young leaders to join senior leadership on an Ingka Investments forest visit in Romania. This gave our young leaders the chance to hear and see first-hand the responsible forestry management practices used and to ask questions to the experts. It was also an opportunity to learn from their questions and observations.

Step 5: Expand impact through external engagement

External engagements at key events provide a platform for young leaders and Ingka to highlight and advocate for intergenerational collaboration. Positioning young leaders alongside Ingka’s senior leadership at key events is an active statement to break the cycle of excluding youth activist voices from traditionally overlooked spaces.

Ingka identifies the relevant external opportunities and recommends engagement strategies for a selected group of young leaders. Once selected and confirmed, young leaders receive pre-event preparation to maximize their impact. Examples of events that Ingka and young leaders have collaborated externally include:

• The B Team RESET Dialogues
• The B Team Meeting Series on Energy Transition in Europe
• Events at NYC Climate Week (e.g. The B Team Catalysing 21st Century Leadership, Action Speaks Summit)
• One Home One Planet (OHOP) Dialogues – Circularity (hosted by IKEA US)
• World Economic Forum, COP27 CEO – Youth Dialogue