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Meet Sarah

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My goal is to positively impact our world, its people, and our planet & leave them all slightly better because I existed.

Sarah Wills Carlsson

Sarah has formal education in electrical engineering at Northwestern (BSEE 1996) and engineering management at Stanford (MS-MS&E 2000) and spent her first twenty-two years in the automotive industry with the same company, on a senior management career trajectory.

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While she loved engineering and the automotive industry as a whole, she realized that senior management roles didn't capture her passion.

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In 2015, she decided to start her own company with the goal of focusing her energy on these aspects she loves most.

 

The first years of Nspir were consulting with a single customer in Gothenburg Sweden, where Sarah worked in project and engineering management roles to build, recruit, and develop an organization and together with her Chinese and international colleagues. As part of and in addition to her consulting work, she has also developed and led training in individual and team development, combining her experience in industry, university education, and additional certifications in Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), Belbin Team Roles, the Integrated Model for Group Development (IMGD) and Group Development Questionnaire (GDQ), and Miki Island, experiential learning according to IMGD.

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After relocating to Columbia, SC, USA due to her husband’s international assignment, she is expanding her training globally to include training, workshops, and individual coaching for mental and physical well-being. As she believes in a systems approach to problem solving, in 2017, she added customized nutritional coaching through the German Metabolic Balance program in order and works with partners in fitness and nutrition improvement.

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Having previously lived inSweden and Germany, Sarah loves the Scandinavian life with sailing and skiing, and the Scandinavian concept of “mys (Swedish) or hygge (Danish)”, which involves bad weather, a warm fire, and peaceful home activities. Having worked regularly with more than ten countries and travelled to more than 30, Sarah loves to travel and especially would like to engage in professional activities with interesting people and in interesting places.

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She especially enjoys bringing understanding to diverse teams, helping individuals overcome imposter syndrome to bring their best selves into their work, and helping individuals and companies avoid making the many mistakes she has learned through doing and studying.

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In a new special project built on collaboration with her sister and several university sorority sisters, Sarah is extending the psychology and theory that she uses in her training to children's books.

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With an interest both in environmental and economic sustainability, Sarah designs and creates original products for her brand SEW & Knot Co.  While this activity is currently on hold, some of her products are available for sale in Lysekil at Outdoor West.

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Finally, photography has been a passion of hers since childhood.  Her pictures of her travels around the world can be seen on Instagram @nspirphotography and are also available for purchase in Lysekil at the book store or Outdoor West, or online via Picfair.

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Sarah Accomplishes Her Goal Through Her Roles As:

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SELF

To recognize I am not perfect, I cannot be and do everything, but as part of a high performing team, I can.

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MOTHER

To bring a strong, capable, loving and kind daughter to be an ethical and empathetic leader in the next generation

 

WIFE

To bring love and loyalty to our relationship to live our wedding vow commitments such that we grow old and always enjoy life together

 

DAUGHTER

To thank and serve my parents (and respectives) for their service to me.  To respect their wisdom and continue learning from them.  To enjoy the time we have together and to take care of them as needed.

 

SISTER & AUNT

To support and love and enjoy time together, to share experiences and knowledge where they are sought.

 

FRIEND

To maintain and further develop a few close relationships for love, support, and mutual growth.

 

TEACHER

To give of myself,  my knowledge and my experiences to open others to new ways of thinking and enable others to achieve their potential.  To truly believe in and seek to bring out the gifts that each individual (regardless of race, religion, gender, sexuality, nationality, etc) has to contribute with and help them to be valued and contribute to their best abilities.  To help shape the next generation of engineering leadership to be both more compassionate and inclusive and achieve better team performance.

 

STUDENT

To continuously seek knowledge and growth, both to deepen, expand, and challenge.  

 

LEADER

To inspire organizations and individuals to achieve a common greater good, to bring out the best in them, to see possibilities, to expand horizons and challenge barriers, and to achieve personal and organizational goals.  I lead with integrity, striving that for all I do, I would be fine if it were printed on the front page of my local newspaper (or went viral on the internet).

 

CREATOR

To create from my ideas and imagination tangible products that can outlive me, such as photography, books, quilts, etc.

 

CONSERVATIONIST

To be respectful and conservative with the planet and natural resources, as well as human life.  To maintain the mobility industry in West Sweden, in a sustainable and cooperative way, so that it is a potential career for my daughter and the future generations as well as a contributor to national security and technology ownership.

 

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Sarahs Roles

ARE YOU A FEMALE ENGINEER?

With Sarah's passion for supporting the next generation, she has developed an e-book to share the five things she wishes she knew when she started working.  Click here to download it!

EDUCATION & TRAINING

  • MSc Engineering Management, Stanford University

  • BSc Electrical Engineering, Northwestern University

  • Hast Utveckling Konsten att Coacha (The Art of Coaching)

  • Hast Utveckling Medvetat Ledarskap (Conscious Leadership)

  • Hast Utveckling Personligt Ledarskap (Personal Leadership)

  • MBTI Foundation:  MBTI Certification

  • Metabolic Balance:  Certified Coach for USA and Sweden

  • Belbin Team Roles Certification

  • GDQ High Functioning Teams Certification

  • Compassion Institute:  Compassion Cultivation Training

  • Miki Island Certification

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