Beatrice Rellman Skantze
Beatrice is our General Counsel, based in Stockholm. She’s responsible for legal works on investments and building the bridges between legal, business, and operations.
I grew up on a farm in Skåne, in the south of Sweden, and moved to a smaller rural area together with my mom and my older brother after my parents got divorced. My mother liked to say that I was the fairness advocate in our family and I should become a lawyer. Yes, everything between my brother and me needed to be fair. When my mother poured candy into two bowls for us kids, I used to say “No, no, no. You need to count!“.
Homeoffice
During my teenage years, I was a bit rebellious and didn’t focus entirely on school. To pursue the path to law I had to bite the bullet by taking a course where the top 20 would get a spot in law school (rather than getting in the ordinary way). As lucky number one, I started law school at Lund University which later on brought me to an exchange year in San Diego where I combined surf, yoga, and studies at University of California. I finalized my studies while living in London and joined the M&A group at the Swedish law firm Mannheimer Swartling after graduation. At some point, one of the partners at the firm knocked on my door and said ‘We’re sending you away on a secondment - You’re going to Creandum’. I was shocked and scared to leave the safe harbor the law firm had provided, but equally (if not more) excited and curious. I was only one and a half years into my career - I felt that I was getting myself into deep water.
Beatrice and Iris
What was supposed to be a limited assignment turned out to be permanent and a job that I love very much. It became apparent from day one that there are so many other dimensions than just the legals that you need to take into consideration to be good at this job. It’s foremost about the business and the people. It’s about the operations. It’s about translating the legals, identifying real risks, and daring to be pragmatic. Being part of the Creandum team, interacting with and serving our entrepreneurs is hugely rewarding to me.
Celebrating signing Twirl investment in style
Besides work, I get a lot of energy from organizing dinner parties and traveling with my husband and friends. My friends like to call me Duracellman (Rellman - you get it) because I tend to always have a lot of energy. My favorite party of the year is the crayfish party organized by my husband and myself. As his father and my mother passed away from cancer, we started these garden parties with our friends where we paint a picture together that gets auctioned at the dinner, and which revenue gets donated to the Cancer Fund.