Pia Heidenmark Cook enjoys a portfolio career, dividing her time between board, senior advisory and keynote speaking roles mainly across Europe and North America. She is serving as non-executive director on corporate boards across healthcare (Bupa), materials innovation (Origin Materials) and restaurants (MAX Burgers), and chairs the advisory board of the professional services company The DO Group. She is also Senior Advisor to the private equity company Eurazeo’s Planetary Boundaries Impact Fund, and to Teneo (CEO Advisory Firm).
Prior, Pia worked at IKEA/Ingka Group for 13 years. The last five years (2017-2021) as Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO). At IKEA she led the development and implementation of the IKEA People and Planet Positive strategy. During this time, IKEA ranked in the top three most sustainable brands and managed to decouple carbon dioxide emissions from its commercial growth across the value chain. Pia has worked with sustainability topics since 1996, across academia, consulting, and business. She has lived in France and Belgium, is married to a Canadian and lives in Southern Sweden.
Her first book, “Embedding Sustainability” (Kogan Page, 2024) was published in July 2024. She is also mentoring young professional women. She is also a frequent keynote speaker/lecturer on sustainability and business transformation at e.g., Lund University (Sweden), Cambridge Institute for Sustainable Leadership (CISL), INSEAD, Boards Impact Forum and Competent Boards’ Executive Training in addition to several corporate events and conferences. Pia has been recognized for her TED talk, “How IKEA is Growing Business Whilst Shrinking Emissions” and in 2024, a survey named her one of the most sought after speakers on sustainability. Pia has been recognized as one of the world’s top female leaders in sustainability and one of the world’s leading influences on climate change. In 2023, she was named Top 20 Sustainability Voices by the CEO Magazine and received the Global 50Womenin Sustainability Awards by SustainabilityX® Magazine. Pia was named top 10 female leaders insustainability by WBCSD in 2018, and top 5 influencers on climate change agenda by theClimateGroup, as well as top 100 climate influencers on Twitter in 2020.oices by the CEO Magazine and received the Global 50Womenin Sustainability Awards by SustainabilityX® Magazine. Pia was named top 10 female leaders insustainability by WBCSD in 2018, and top 5 influencers on climate change agenda by theClimateGroup, as well as top 100 climate influencers on Twitter in 2020.