Stefan Ytterborn

Stefan Ytterborn (born November 25, 1963) is a Swedish entrepreneur and designer in product design, communication, and branding. He is the founder of consulting company Ytterborn & Fuentes, ski safety wear brand POC Sports and electric motorcycle and moped manufacturer Cake.
==Early life and family==
Ytterborn grew up in Sundbyberg, outside Stockhol, with his parents and younger brother, Jan Ytterborn. His father was a lawyer, and his mother was a gym teacher. His family was active in sports and outdoor activities, and his mother in particular promoted a range of sports. Stefan and his brother spent their free time in the winter skiing and in the summer, they played water sports and various team sports.
During the winters Ytterborn regularly used the local slalom hill in Sundbyberg where his love of skiing began. "I was definitely not a star, but I loved slalom and skied as much as I could. Me and my little brother made our own slalom clothes, so we looked like Gustav Thöni, the cool Italian who dominated slalom before Ingmar Stenmark broke through."
Ytterborn was not an academic school pupil, and said of his school days, “I was far too restless to sit on a school bench. My little brother was a lot more focused and later on studied to be an architect. I lacked that patience." 
==Early business career==
Ytterborn’s first job at 19 years old was selling blinds and gave him his first exposure to working with architects, experience that would influence his later career paths, “I became interested in environmental and design issues. I studied different eras, and the closer I got to the present, the more I realised that this was where I wanted to work and be. It was a very important process for me.”
Ytterborn’s entrepreneurial career began in furniture and interior design, and at 21 he started his first company C & Bi Interior, bringing contemporary international design to Scandinavia.
===Early 1990s===
The economy's downturn in the 1990s led to a shift in market aspirations from an over-the-top 80s style towards simplicity and longevity. This change, combined with a new generation of Swedish designers, inspired Ytterborn to found CBI, a furniture brand that promoted Swedish contemporary design to the rest of the world. CBI premiered at the Milan Furniture Fair in 1993.
CBI represented contemporary brands such as SCP, founded and led Sheridan Coakley that amplified the presence of the London scene and its new generation of designers to the rest of the world, together with various Spanish brands such as Mariscal, sprawling post-Franco and technical lighting from Italian Luce Plan and more.
As an extension of importing contemporary furniture and lighting, Ytterborn also curated a number of designer shows and exhibitions promoting visions, future directions, and the designers to the Scandinavian audience. Many of them eventually became noted designers of their generation; Jasper Morrison, Marc Newson, Konstantin Grcic, Alfredo Häberli, Ross Lovegrove, and James Irvine.
CBI’s first collection included designs from Pia Wallén, Sofia Uddén, Thomas Eriksson, Thomas Sandell, Per Söderberg and James Irvine. To further amplify interest and resources Ytterborn gathered fellow companies David Design, Box, Forminord and Asplund alongside CBI to form the umbrella organisation Swecode, for international marketing activities and additional coverage for Swedish design.
===Influence===
A number of products from CBI’s designer collective continue to be popular amongst design enthusiasts. These include Björn Dahlström’s gondola sofa, assorted cookware for iittala, and Carina Seth Anderson’s range for Hackman.
===IKEA===
One of Ytterborn’s most prominent projects was with Scandinavian furniture company IKEA, when in 1995 he pitched to improve and forge a design language that would embody the Swedish brand and promote a new era of Swedish design. Together with a team of designers, the result was IKEA PS (Post Scriptum), a collection based on strong, simple designs that continues to deliver functional, affordable interior collections in collaboration with selected designers. The project was launched at the furniture fair in Giardino Publico in Milan, together with 15 young Swedish designers. The launch of IKEA PS was impactful, both in terms of igniting IKEA as well as supporting the way forward for Swedish design on the global design scene.
===Mid 1990s and consultancy===
Inspired by working with large companies and opportunities for meaningful investments and true innovation, Ytterborn founded the award-winning corporate brand and design consultancy Ytterborn & Fuentes, together with the advertising profiler Oscar Fuentes. Its aim was to develop platforms allowing for creative collaborations across the world, targeting long-term commercial success through low-risk activities. The agency’s main focus became leading and directing Scandinavian brands, developing new platforms, products and go to market initiatives within glassware, ceramics and cookware. Clients included iittala, Rörstrand, Hackman, Arabia and Absolut Vodka, with a 2001 CoreDesign Gold and Silver prizes among many of the agency’s accolades.
The network of international designers and architects that the agency established, and their willingness to contribute, had an impact on restarting these businesses with a global focus. Aside from Scandinavian design contributions from Björn Dahlström, Carina Seth Andersson, Stefan Lindfors, Jonas Bohlin, Pia Törnell, and Harri Koskinen an international roster of young and established designers and architects were assigned. Renzo Piano, Antonio Citterio, Vico Magistretti, Alberto Meda and Richard Meier on the established side and Konstantin Grcic, Alfredo Häberli who worked a special ceramic project for Rörstrand, Marc Newson, James Irvine, Ross Lovegrove and more were among the many contributors.
In 2002 Ytterborn stepped away from his CEO role at Ytterborn & Fuentes to focus on a new business venture.
==POC==
At the beginning of the 2000s, Ytterborn’s two oldest sons, Karl and Nils, competed in downhill skiing. Ytterborn noticed the high speeds, and the greater number of accidents as a result, in the sport. He realized an urgent need to develop better protection for the riders, which would become the start of POC Sports, founded in 2004. The first products were launched in 2005 at ISPO in Munich.
In 2005 Libby Ludlow from the US Ski Team was the first athlete to use POC gear in a World Cup race. Only a few months later Julia Mancuso won the Olympic GS gold in Cortina in 2006, and POC was globally recognised.
The demand for back protectors and helmets for skiing coincided with a broader trend among consumers, paving the way for POC to operate successfully both in Sweden and internationally. The combination of innovation and design together with an amazing rooster of additional athletes supporting such as like Bode Miller, Steven Nyman, Scott McCartney, Anja Pärsson, Aurilien Ducroz, Jon Olsson, Tanner Hall and many more, POC was quickly established around the world.
To balance the winter and skiing side of the business, cycling was added in 2008 in the form of downhill mountain biking, where POC became one of the first brand to integrate MIPS, followed by X-country and eventually road cycling, again growing rapidly through innovation and performance implementations and bringing a new style.
POC-equipped cycling athletes have gone on to achieve great success around the world. Swedish cyclists at the 2012 Olympic Games trialled the new POC Tempor time trial helmet, and in 2013 Olympic cyclist Gustav Larsson became POC’s first road bike athlete. The POC Ventral helmet also made an impact with road riders when it launched at the Tour Down Under in Adelaide, Australia. Further supporting aspiration were the Garmin Sharp Tour de France team, Enduro star Robin Wallner, dirt authority Martin Söderström, Danny Macaskill and more.
POC was acquired by US firm Black Diamond in 2012, to amplify the journey. Ytterborn stayed as the CEO through another acquisition by Investcorp in 2015 and eventually left to form CAKE during the fall of 2016.
==CAKE==
While still working at POC, in 2012 Ytterborn attended a trade show in Munich where he first encountered an electric motorcycle, “I never planned or dreamed of making motorcycles, it's probably as far from my personality as you can get. I was at a trade fair in Germany and in connection with it I saw an electric motorcycle for the first time… This world opened new doors.” 
Seeing an opportunity to create a new mass market product that could allow riders to experience nature undisturbed and sustainably, Ytterborn combined his outdoor enthusiasm with his innovation and began testing various electric vehicles on two wheels, from electric mountain bikes to electric converted motocross bikes. Cake was then founded in 2016 with sons Karl and Nils, who continue to work at the company.
Aiming to accelerate the development towards a fossil-free society, Cake is now a manufacturer of light, electric motorcycles and mopeds. The scope for CAKE is off-road and utility, leisure, commuting or professional use and today include 5 different platforms. The Kalk (off-road), the Bukk (off-road), the Ösa (modular motorcycle and EU moped), the Makka (moped). and the Åik (pedelec/eBike)
2021 saw several major investments into Cake, boosting its sales and manufacturing in several locations in Europe, the USA and Asia. In 2022, Cake’s own factory was opened in Albyberg, south of Stockholm, for assembling the products for the European market. In September of 2022, Cake closed its largest funding round to date of USD 60 million, following increased sales and growing demand. As of 2023 Cake is owned by the Ytterborn family and a number of institutional investors, including AMF, Creandum and German Headline.
Cake’s sustainability in nature position has also seen the brand expand into a range of initiatives, including a 2021 Electric Bush Bike Anti-Poaching Initiative that equipped South African nature reserve rangers with the Kalk. The silence of the motorcycle’s powertrain allows rangers to catch poachers without noise disturbance. A 2022 joint project with Swedish power company Vattenfall entitled ‘Cleanest Dirt Bike Ever’ featured a Cake Kalk OR motorcycle suspended in a transparent, 637 cubic metre cube that represents all of the emissions from the bike’s production chain process. The aim is to bring that number as close to zero as possible by 2025.
==Awards and influence==
Ytterborn has initiated and directed projects that have been recognised globally receiving more than 200+ awards. His work with design, business, brand and product development has seen him receive numerous awards and recognitions.
In 2022 Ytterborn received the ABC Award for Brand Manager of the Year.
Category:1963 births
Category:Swedish people
Category:Entrepreneurs
Category:Designers
Category:Company founders