Danfoss Power Solutions

Sandra Kolder is Head of Global Social Media at Danfoss Power Solutions, leading global strategy across markets. With a background spanning science, education and communications, she specializes in human-centered storytelling, data-driven campaigns and building authentic brand advocacy through employee voices.

A Classroom Experience that Shaped Leadership

Teaching in a college classroom is probably one of the most foundational experiences that shaped how I lead global social strategy.

My students came from a variety of backgrounds and experiences, which meant one approach never fit everyone. One of the fastest lessons I learned was how to compete for attention and not in a theoretical way. They were not tuning out because they were rude. They were thinking about their next hike in the Rockies or the next show at the Bluebird, and I had a few minutes to make the topic feel more relevant than that.

That forced me back to three basic questions: who is my audience, what do they already care about, and how do I get them to care about what I have to say. Oddly enough, that took me straight back to something more ancient: the rhetorical triangle. Credibility, connection and proof. All balanced.

I balance that same triangle now, just with different stakes. In the office and in running global channels, I work to build the credibility of the brands I support, the expertise and trust that makes people listen in the first place. I work to connect to our targeted audiences through human-forward content that meets them where they are, not where we wish they were. And I work to bring the facts that prove the value of our solutions, because in engineering and tech industries, especially, people want the data along with their story.

From the classroom to the office, this balance keeps me from leading with the platform or the metric and instead leading with the person on the other side of the screen. Whether I am collaborating on a new campaign, reviewing creative from Denmark, or coaching a new group of ambassadors, I start with the same three questions my students taught me to ask.

Reconnecting Global Brands with Human-Centered Storytelling                                    

Global brands are adapting by doing something surprisingly simple: putting humans back in the feed.

I think we often overcomplicate this. Especially with the rise of AI, the temptation is to optimize for the platform or the data and in the process we lose our own narrative. People don't want to do business with a faceless brand. People want to do business with people.

That shift changes how we choose what to say. It means connecting content to the audience you actually want, not to everyone who might hear it. Too many brands still try to say everything about what they're offering instead of focusing on what matters most to current and potential customers.

One of the clearest ways I see that playing out is putting the people behind the brand in the spotlight. That means training employees, the same people who already give more than 40 hours a week to the business, to become front-line advocates. When you help them share expertise through real storytelling, it carries more weight than any splashy campaign because it is specific, credible, and local.

“I work to connect to our targeted audiences through human-forward content that meets them where they are, not where we wish they were.”

It also means letting regional teams choose the platforms that fit their culture instead of forcing a one-size-fits-all global playbook. A team in Minneapolis will naturally read the room differently than a team in Copenhagen, and their content should reflect that. When you let local voices lead, you stop translating a message and start making it resonate.

Balancing Creativity and Data in Global Campaign Execution

Coming from the sciences, you'll never catch me without data analytics in my back pocket. I check performance the way some people check the weather. It’s a habit, and it’s useful.

But if we focus only on the data, we limit ourselves. Creativity stays front and center for me because that is how we earn attention and keep it. Data can tell us what worked last Tuesday in Germany. Creativity is what helps us figure out why it might fall flat in Brazil next month, and what to try instead. It is how we stay relevant enough to innovate instead of imitate.

Run a global feed solely on numbers, and you end up repeating yourself. The algorithm rewards familiarity, so the safest creative choice starts to look like the only choice. Pretty soon, your content looks homogenized, and homogenized is the fastest way to lose a virtual audience. If people think they have seen it before, they will scroll right past, no matter how clean your dashboard looks.

I use data and performance insights as a gut check, not a script. They tell me if our storytelling is tone-deaf or if we are speaking to an empty room. They also show me where curiosity is paying off, which markets are leaning in, which formats are fatiguing, which cultural references landed and which ones missed.

The balance, for me, lives in the loop. Creativity decides what we say first. Data tells us whether anyone heard it, who heard it, and what they did next. Then creativity takes that signal and tries something a little more innovative. That backand-forth keeps global work from turning into an automated copy-paste exercise.

Building a Career in Global Social Media Through Curiosity

Social media and digital communications move fast. It is one of the fastest-evolving fields out there, which is why you will find people in it from just about every background you can imagine. Look around any global team, and you will see a former journalist next to a data analyst next to someone who started in retail. We bring a myriad of different experiences to the table.

What we tend to have in common is curiosity. Curious about which audience has made a home on the newest platform. Curious about why a post that took an hour to make outperforms one that took weeks to produce. Curious, most of all, about people and what makes them stop scrolling. That curiosity does two things at once. It keeps you open to new ideas, and it keeps you agile enough to adapt when the platforms inevitably change.

Most career paths are not straight lines. Mine certainly was not. It wove through different roles, industries, and continents, and curiosity was the thread that held it together. Following that thread led me to diverse experiences and to people from different backgrounds who shaped and sharpened how I communicate.

So my advice is simple: stay curious and learn from the people around you. Ask the extra question in the debrief. Volunteer for the project that scares you a little. You never know which conversation will turn into your next opportunity.