Senior Advisor | Sustainability & Impact
Pia Heidenmark Cook is a globally recognised sustainability leader, former Chief Sustainability Officer at IKEA, and now an influential board member, advisor, author, and keynote speaker driving positive change across business and society.
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Pia Heidenmark Cook enjoys a portfolio career, dividing her time between board positions, senior advisory roles, and keynote speaking engagements, primarily across Europe and North America. She currently serves as a non-executive director on corporate boards in the healthcare (Bupa), materials innovation (Origin Materials), and restaurant (MAX Burgers) sectors. In addition, she chairs the advisory board of the professional services firm The DO Group. Pia is also a Senior Advisor to Eurazeo’s Planetary Boundaries Impact Fund, a private equity initiative, and to Teneo, a CEO advisory firm.
Previously, Pia spent 13 years at IKEA/Ingka Group, serving during her final five years (2017–2021) as Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO). At IKEA, she led the development and implementation of the company’s People and Planet Positive strategy. Under her leadership, IKEA ranked among the top three most sustainable brands and successfully decoupled carbon dioxide emissions from commercial growth across its value chain. Pia has worked in sustainability since 1996, spanning academia, consulting, and business. She has lived in France and Belgium, is married to a Canadian, and resides in southern Sweden.
Her first book, Embedding Sustainability: How to Drive Organisational Transformation, was published in July 2024. Pia also mentors young professional women and frequently delivers keynote speeches and lectures on sustainability and business transformation. Her engagements include institutions such as Lund University (Sweden), the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL), INSEAD, Boards Impact Forum, and Competent Boards’ executive training programmes, as well as numerous corporate events and conferences.
Pia has received widespread recognition for her TED Talk, How IKEA is Growing Business Whilst Shrinking Emissions, and in 2024 was named one of the most sought-after speakers on sustainability. She has been acknowledged as one of the world’s leading female figures in sustainability and a major influencer on climate change. In 2023, she was named among the Top 20 Sustainability Voices by CEO Magazine and received the Global 50 Women in Sustainability award from SustainabilityX® Magazine. Previous accolades include being listed among the top 10 female leaders in sustainability by WBCSD in 2018, a top 5 influencer on the climate change agenda by The Climate Group, and among the top 100 climate influencers on Twitter in 2020.
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