Pernille Spiers-Lopez

Pernille is a Global Director serving on corporate and non-profit boards. She believes in doing business that does good and has championed the advancement of women and minorities in leadership throughout her career. She was the former CEO & President of IKEA North America and most recently the former Global HR Manager for the IKEA Group. She is also the co-founder with her daughter of Good Life Designed.

Pernille currently serves on the private boards of Meijer Corporation, BurnAlong and IKANO Latin America. She is currently the Board Chair for Homeboy Industries, Los Angeles, California and serves on the board of Register Her. She has been a trustee of Save The Children for over a decade and was recently Board Chair for Save The Children International.

Pernille was with IKEA for 21 years. Among several top executive positions, Pernille held the position as CEO & President for IKEA North America and was a member of The Executive Management Team of the IKEA Group for 10 years. During her tenure as President of IKEA North America (2001-2009), Pernille lead the fastest expansion ever within IKEA. IKEA grew from a small ‘niche’ retailer with 23 stores to a ‘major player’ with 50 stores. She brought with her a wealth of experience in home furnishings retail, human resources and leadership. This experience was grounded in and enhanced by her commitment to the IKEA culture and values that are at the heart of the company and its success.

Most recently Pernille was the Global HR Manager for the IKEA Group and its 135,000 employees. With her extensive business experience, she developed and implemented a new business-focused HR Strategy empowering the organization, its leaders and co-workers to grow business and people together. It is through this humanistic way of doing business that Pernille brought to IKEA perhaps her greatest asset: the ambition to foster an environment of growth, inclusion, balance, and empowerment – while doing good business..

A native of Denmark with a degree in Journalism, Pernille has lived in the United States for over 30 years. Before joining IKEA, Pernille was an entrepreneur with a Scandinavian design business and held several leadership positions for different retail companies in Florida and California.

Pernille published her first book in Denmark in 2012 about personal leadership and taking responsibility for our own life and success “If Your Life Was a Kitchen”. The English version “Design Your Life” was published in the US by Beyond Words in 2014 and recently in both China and Saudi Arabia.