Meet Sara Badreh Wirström

Why did you start BW Consultancy AB?

I am a biochemist by education and I spent 4 years after my master degree doing research at Karolinska Institute in the field of immunology. During this time I was also very active in different patient organisations as a board member and involved in different committees due to my personal relation to being a patient with a chronic disease. After my research years I ended up leaving academia to go work with research policy and advocacy full time and eventually moved to Brussels to work for a European medical organisation, working with European affairs.

I had been working with European Affairs in either advocacy, policy or regulatory for more than 17 years when I realised that most of the projects that I am involved in with a focus on research or medicine, doesn't have project managers or officers that have a scientific background. Most of them are from the field of political science or law (rightfully so since they work with politics and EU laws). I had noticed that it would be of great benefit to the projects if you would understand the science behind it when managing it and not only the policy decision making processes. Once I noticed this gap, I knew it would be a great idea to start a consultancy where our project managers and consultants are people that just like myself have for some reason left academia to pursue a career beyond science and chosen to further educate themselves within European Affairs and want to use that knowledge and experience to push for changes in our existing policy and regulations by helping organisations and companies lead EU level projects with a scientific focus.

What do you like about the job?

The diversity of the projects and the different clients you get to work with. Building networks and connections and of course to see my company grow from being just me to now have employees and know that we are offering something valuable and appreciated!

Why did you choose to become a consultant?

I love having different projects and working with different clients and areas of interest. You learn so much more about different fields you might have not necessarily thought you would be able to work with. I also like the feeling of being "hired guns" to come in and help a client deliver on a project and feel the satisfaction of knowing we reached our set target goal, delivered on our promise and to see the client happy. You get a direct feedback on your work that is hard to match anywhere else.

Tell us something fun about yourself.

I think when you see my half marathon medals, yoga mats and meditation cushions you think I am a health freak (which is somewhat true) but what I don't think people expect when they meet me is that when I was younger I used to love playing 8-bit Nintendo (Yes, I am that old haha), and I once competed in NES, and was the only girl participating, and I won! The game was Super Marios Bros. and you had to complete the entire game in the quickest time without dying.