Ep 182: Why Most CEOs Are Getting AI Adoption Wrong with Annica Rantala, CEO of Rapunzel of Sweden

On this episode, I sit down with Annica Rantala, CEO of Rapunzel of Sweden, to talk about what happens when you take a category dominated by professionals and salons and hand it directly to the consumer.

Rapunzel is a Nordic pioneer in hair extensions - built on a direct-to-consumer model from day one, with 81% of revenue through their own e-commerce. We get into how that model works in practice: the education-first approach to new customers, why micro-creators with 2,000–10,000 followers consistently outperform big names on return, and how the brand thinks about its dual audience of end users and hairstylist key opinion leaders.

We also talk about Annica's journey from board member to operating CEO - what you think you can see from a board seat, and what you can't - and the lessons from her time scaling Stronger through and beyond the pandemic.

On AI, Annica makes a point I hadn't heard put quite this way before: you can take a people-first approach to AI adoption, a brand-first approach, or a technology-first approach and most companies are getting it wrong by defaulting to the last one and locking it down to the tech team.

Enjoy the show.