Q&A: New boss of H&M-backed Centra Sara Laurell wants to keep the growth coming

It’s been a busy few months for ecommerce platform Centra. In May, Swedish fashion giant H&M took a minority stake in the business, and earlier this month it appointed a new chief executive, Sara Laurell. She sits down exclusively with Retail Week to discuss her first few weeks in the role, her experience working in retail and how transformational the H&M deal could be for Centra.

The Swedish ecommerce platform for global fashion brands works with over 300 major labels such as Osprey, Nudie Jeans and Paul Smith and have experienced rapid growth over the past few years including 45% growth in the UK year on year to 2025.

Centra co-founder and outgoing chief executive Martin Jensen has transitioned to chief product officer after eight years in the role, having achieved significant growth and a minority-partnership deal with fashion retail giant H&M.

Sara Laurell spoke exclusively to Retail Week about her previous experience, the rising complexity of fashion ecommerce and the challenges faced by Centra.

You have a breadth of experience working in various leadership positions. How do you plan to use your skillset to expand upon Centra’s goals?

My core skill from leadership is really to build high performing teams who are able to tackle and develop in transformative times.

The industry is moving rapidly, and I think the key for Centra to continue its journey is to get into new markets and adding to our product to broaden the relationship with our retail customers.”

You are almost two weeks into your new role, what attracted you to the position and how has the transition in leadership been for you?

I have felt very welcome. Centra is a fantastic group of people. But there is such an opportunity to go beyond succeeding in the Nordics and really building on the expansion that’s happened in the UK and across continental Europe.

You led a transformative campaign at the Swedish lingerie brand Twilfit, driving profitable growth and increasing brand awareness, do you look forward to working more closely with fashion retailers at Centra?

Our tools and ability to work with all of our clients is strong from a technical operational and cultural perspective.

Fashion is an important way of self-expression, as well as a creative space that attracts a lot of new customers. We can help these companies improve, from both a self-expression and a sustainability standpoint.

H&M recently acquired a minority stake in Centra. How has this worked out for the company and how do you think it will help your client base going forward?

H&M is one of the most innovative fashion companies in the world and we attracted their attention after they saw the way we’ve transformed hundreds of companies with B2B and direct-to-customer communication.

They have changed our transformational roadmap as well as our research and development, and it is just amazing to work with them.

Can you sustain the huge growth Centra has experienced over the last few years in the UK and other European markets?

Growth comes from two things. One is signing new customers and the other is growing with the customers you have, and both are very important.

We need to ask questions like, how are we making sure our customers are happy? How do we think about add-on sales? How do we think about expanding the product portfolio so we do more? All these are strategic topics that link back to leading a high-performing team.

Let’s say I’ve started a fashion brand that’s been around for a few years in the UK and I’m now looking to globally scale my business. Why should they choose Centra?

We are uniquely good at scaling companies globally. We help companies broaden and scale their online presence.

We have history and knowledge from many customers on what specifically you need to be able to control and change to be successful in the fashion retail sector.