Our story

How our story began

It started by listening

Our founder, Ronald Bernette, began this journey at the intersection of academia and industry, as Head of Operational Development at KTH’s Resource Center for Net-Based Education. Scania stood out – KTH’s largest private grant contributor with 50% of Scania’s engineers being alumni from the university. The foundation for something bigger was there from the start.

Pressing business challenges

Rather than pitching a program, a different question was asked: what are Scania’s most pressing business challenges, and how could KTH help solve them? That shift, from selling learning to co-owning problems, turned the university from a vendor into a partner.

From conversation to pilot in six months

Within a month, Scania and KTH signed a letter of intent focused on the electrification of heavy vehicles and the new competencies it demanded. Uppsala University joined, and within six months the pilot was live – proof that industry and academia could build together at the speed business actually moves.

A pilot that opened a door

Scania’s CHRO, Kent Conradson, also a Combient board member, highlighted the pilot as a best-practice example of collaborative learning at scale. The recognition became an invitation to present the hypothesis to the full Combient board and explore what it could become within a cross-industry collaboration network.

Validation from the companies that mattered

An agreement was reached to validate interest directly with member companies, and four were introduced: Scania, SEB, Husqvarna, and Wärtsilä. The exploratory workshops that followed became the genuine beginning of Collegial, shaped by the organizations that would go on to use it.

Collegial is founded

In February 2018, Collegial was officially founded, with the first engagement bringing together the four companies and our first academic partner, the Stockholm School of Economics. Together, we built Leading Digital Acceleration, which launched in January 2019 – the hypothesis had become a company.

Where we are today

Today, Collegial is an established strategic enablement partner for large enterprise organizations within and beyond the Combient network, aligning workforce development with strategic goals. We turn strategy into action, ensuring learning drives measurable impact on both individual performance and the business.