Jessica Persson, head of VC and M&A at Scania Invest, is one of our top 50 Emerging Leaders in corporate venturing for 2026.
Jessica Persson has been with Scania for more than 25 years and helped create the Scania Invest in-house venture capital arm for the Swedish truck and bus manufacturer four years ago.
She says now is a great time for corporations to invest in startups. The traditional venture capital sector has become polarised between those with the deepest pockets and the rest, but corporations can carve out a unique role between the two.
“You are either Temasek or the Norwegian Oil Fund where you have relevance because of your large capital, or you have to have something else, you need to find your edge in a very consolidated global landscape,” she says. “We have access to customer knowledge and execution when it comes to proofs of concept and pilots and have real global scaling capabilities.”
The Scania ventures team sits under top management but is empowered to make decisions independently. “That has been very beneficial for us, because we can be very quick in our decision-making,” says Persson.
“You either have relevance because of your large capital, or you have to have something else, you need to find your edge in a very consolidated global landscape”
The team has five full-time members, with a further half-dozen or so experts available to help with legal, communications and other specialist functions.
Persson’s interests reflect the evolving needs of both Scania and the industry: “When it comes to the pure technical parts, robotics is going to be interesting,” she says, both for bringing new technologies into Scania’s factories and assembly lines, as well as for customers. At the same time, she looks at innovation related to circularity and sustainability, as well as new materials.
Persson’s ethos is deeply global, shaped by years spent abroad while growing up, as well as several overseas posts for Scania. She sees a role for global corporations and technology to counteract some of today’s geopolitical tensions.
“While the world is pulling apart right now, we have to be that uniting force that maintains a global aspect.”
Emerging Leaders are mid-career CVC professionals who are making an outstanding contribution to their team and the industry.
