Åsa Hederberg is currently the Creative Manager for the IKEA Product Development Centre, Asia Pacific, where she leads the creative direction of the IKEA product range. She has over 15 years experience in the home furnishing industry and has a profound interest in product design, fashion and retail trends.

Jakob Hallgren serves as the ambassador of Sweden to the Republic of Korea.

He is making a great effort to promote design and cultural exchanges between Korea and Sweden. Before his Korea assignment, Jakob Hallgren served as Deputy Director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) from 2012 to 2018. He also previously worked at the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs as Head of its Humanitarian Division and as Head of its Division for Conflict Issues. He has worked closely with the United Nations and various agencies in activities to create a better future in the areas of mediation, peace building, disarmament, humanitarian action, and disaster risk reduction.

Mats Widbom has many years of national and international experience in the museum sector and public diplomacy. He holds a degree in architecture and is well-versed in the area of design, having held positions including head of design, architecture and urban environment during Stockholm’s year as Cultural Capital of Europe in 1998, artistic director at the Swedish Traveling Exhibition and cultural counsellor in Washington DC where a series of design exhibitions were held at the then newly opened House of Sweden. Most recently, Mats Widbom was in Paris as director of the Swedish Institute, as well as cultural counsellor at the Swedish Institute.

Tor Lindstrand is an architect and head of the Master’s Program in Spatial Design at Konstfack, University College of Arts and Craft, in Stockholm. His practice oscillates between architecture, art and performance in numerous cultural contexts with projects presented in institutions like the Tate, Liverpool, Venice Architecture Biennale 2008, 2010 and 2014, Steirischer Herbst, Shenzhen and Hong Kong Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture, and more. He is on the board of Eva Bonniers donationsnämnd (a foundation that promotes public discourse on the rold of art and architecture and undertakes art projects), an expert for the Swedish Art Grants Committee, on the jury for Ung Svensk Form (Young Swedish Design) and architecture critic at FORM magazine.

Petra Lilja is an industrial designer who dedicates her career to critically examining the role of the designer in a world where a lot of the problems we're facing, like climate change, poverty and inequity, can be traced back to design decisions.
She divides her time between her design studio and her academic work as design lecturer, researcher and board member of the managing team for the Design + Change Program at Linnaeus University, Southern Sweden

Nicolas Johnsson is a marketing and communication professional with 15 years of experience in building the IKEA Brand in various markets. Currently he is the country marketing manager in IKEA Korea but has also been country marketing manager in Russia and marketing project leader in IKEA Germany and in the global IKEA marketing department in Sweden. Before he joined IKEA he worked in the advertising industry in New York.

He has done master studies at Lund and Stockholm universities in Sweden as well as media studies at Pace University in New York.

Erin Cho is a recognized scholar and practitioner in the areas of design strategy, branding, innovation, e-commerce, and entrepreneurship. Fusing her specialties both in management and design, she has built not only an impressive list of research outputs published in internationally respected journals but also extensive corporate consulting and venture incubating experiences.

Eunjoo Maing currently serves as a director at the Korea Institute of Design Promotion (KIDP), a national design organization established by the Korean government’s, MOTIE (Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy) in 1970. She’s also been also contributing to the World Design Organization (WDO), an international body for design, as a regional adviser since October 2017 when she completed two terms of her commitment as an Executive Board member of the WDO.

For the KIDP, Eunjoo has been playing a key role in building and developing international cooperation and opportunities. In collaboration with numerous organizations, she’s been helping designers and companies to go global or build international networks, organizing design exhibitions, educational activities like conferences, seminars or workshops, business matching programs and so on.

Maing initiated the ‘Next Generation Design Leaders program’, a government-funded project to recognize and support talented young Korean designers. For nearly 10 years, about 158 young Korean designers were selected and provided with opportunities to showcase or market their design works

Eun-Kyung Jeon’s career began as a reporter specializing in the area of design.
While interviewing many internationally-known designers and design specialists, and covering stories on various design events, she became skilled in finding the important design trends across the nation. Her articles reflect such findings.
With this, she further developed her interest in spotting out the hidden values within design around the world.
Design marketing and trend reporting are her main areas of expertise.