The former H&M chief executive officer was honored at the World Retail Congress for her role at the intersection of resilience and retail transformation.The former H&M chief executive officer was honored at the World Retail Congress for her role at the intersection of resilience and retail transformation.
BERLIN — Helena Helmersson, the former chief executive officer of H&M, was recognized as one of retail’s leading voices on sustainability and circular business models with the Woman of the Year award at the World Retail Congress, as she builds a portfolio of leadership roles spanning fashion, technology and materials innovation following her departure from the Swedish retailer.
Helmersson received the award during a cocktail event held at the Hugo Boss flagship in Berlin. The award marks a new phase in a career that has moved on from running one of the world’s largest fast-fashion groups to working across a network of companies focused on rethinking how the industry grows.
“I’d been with H&M for 26 years, so it feels almost like I grew up there,” she said, reflecting on her time at the Swedish retailer, where she held roles spanning sourcing, production, sustainability, operations and ultimately chief executive officer. Her career included postings in Bangladesh and Hong Kong, and a five-year tenure leading sustainability before becoming CEO.
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Helmersson has seen the fashion industry undergo multiple structural shifts over the past two decades, from globalization to digitalization to sustainability and now a growing focus on “resilience.” But she added that the nature of today’s challenges increasingly require collaboration.
“If you look at climate change, or you look at value chain resilience, which all businesses are looking into right now, those are problems that you can’t really solve alone,” she told WWD.
Helmersson’s position reflects the broader debate within fashion circles over how sustainability has seemingly been deprioritized since the pandemic. She said many companies still treat sustainability as a secondary concern when demand weakens, reverting to core product and cost priorities.
She contrasted that with businesses that have embedded sustainability into their growth strategies, arguing that for those companies it becomes part of long-term resilience rather than a discretionary target.
“This goes in waves, and I think it’s been truly painful to see the past few years that it has gone back,” she said. “There’s something when it’s tough [economic] times going back to your core, more here and now, more analytical, less collaborative, less visionary, if you would generalize,” she said.
She emphasized the need for female leadership, especially when CEOs have an urge to go to ground.
“Women have qualities linked to being very visionary, using empathy as part of the leadership, and being collaborative on issues,” she said. “I’m just such a big believer in women leaders, and I think that women leaders can create a more inclusive, collaborative, ambitious future.
“I feel energy and a willingness to be part of changing this because I truly, truly believe in that type of diversity and equality that it would bring better decisions, stronger businesses,” she added.
Helmersson also pointed to an emerging shift in the buzzwords within the industry, where sustainability is increasingly being reframed as “resilience,” particularly in response to volatile energy prices, geopolitical uncertainty and material supply disruptions in corporate strategies.
Since leaving H&M, Helmersson has moved into a series of advisory and board roles that reflect a broader focus on circularity and institutional change in fashion. She is chair of Circulose, a Swedish materials company that produces a textile pulp made from recycled cotton waste, and said the role has pushed her to rethink how sustainability is operationalized in commercial systems.
She also serves as an adviser and board member at Mango, a role she began after being approached by CEO Toni Ruiz shortly after her departure from H&M, though she needed to wait out her non-compete period before joining the Spanish fast-fashion group. A year ago, she also joined the board of sportswear brand On.
At Circulose, Helmersson said one of the key challenges has been ensuring that sustainability decisions are not left to textile producers, where they often compete directly with cost concerns and the easy availability of virgin materials. Instead she said the company has worked to redesign its pricing model so that sustainability-related costs are addressed at a senior management level to make them more accessible and widespread.
In practice, that means Circulose has introduced a licensing model that shifts the decision making from buyers, who must make a trade-off between short-term price concerns and long-term sustainability targets, to the C-suite, ultimately reducing the friction in the adoption of recycled materials for fashion brands.
“The operating model is not always easy for people in an organization to do the right thing,” she said.
Beyond Circulose, Mango, and On Helmersson has added an AI-based fashion tech company, eComID, to her portfolio. The company is focused on reducing product returns through improved sizing and recommendation systems.
She said the common “red thread” across her work is an interest in supporting companies that combine creativity, commercial ambition and sustainability.
“I thrive in entrepreneurial and creative environments, and I want to integrate business and sustainability,” she said.
Despite her current portfolio, Helmersson said she still feels most energized by executive leadership and team building.
“My number-one passion is leadership,” she said, hinting that she may return to a role in the future. In the meantime, she will continue her work across boards and advisory positions.
In her acceptance remarks at the award ceremony, Helmersson said she has been encouraged by growing recognition of leadership styles that prioritize collaboration and empathy, alongside commercial performance.
“She normalized the sustainability journey,” said Lucy Harris, CEO of executive search firm Altrua, who presented the award. “She made it part of the commercial roadmap and the core of how a business should operate.”
Helmersson reflected on the continued importance of visibility for women in leadership roles within retail, even if it wouldn’t be a concideration in an ideal world.
“Maybe in a decade, or I don’t know when, maybe female recognitions won’t be needed,” she said. “But for now I am super honored.”
