Location: Stockholm (on-site at Norrsken Impact Hub) Type: Full-time Equity: Attractive equity package on a co-founder level Salary: Seed-stage market salary, increasing after 12 months or at Series A — whichever comes later Start date: As soon as possible. The world can't wait.
Imagine a world where we consume only what the planet can regenerate, packaging is circular, and waste is a thing of the past. At Circulate, we are gathering the best and the brightest within tech and business, working shoulder to shoulder, building a European company driving that vision — at a genuine inflection point, with real traction. If you are ready to apply your skills, ambition, and drive to one of the most critical challenges of our lifetime, this is the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity you have been waiting for.
We are not hiring an employee. We are looking for a partner in crime to help us build the most profitable impact company to date.
We consume way too much. In wealthy countries, we have already used up our share of the planet's yearly resources by April. We'd need to cut consumption by around 75% to live within our means.
The easiest place to start? Packaging. The shortest-lived, lowest-value use of natural resources on the planet. Every European throws away ~200 kg of packaging waste a year.
But the packaging industry is ancient, analogue, and impossible to navigate — no shared system, no common data, no easy way to compare, switch, or report. And for the brands buying it, packaging is never their core focus: they lack the time, expertise, and information to handle it well, and the complexity is wildly disproportionate to the resources they can throw at it. A desperate gap for technology to fill.
We are changing that.
Circulate is building the foundational data layer for the packaging industry — mapping every item, every supplier, every spec into one structured single source of truth. On top of it, we run the workflows the industry actually needs: procurement, restock, forecasting, compliance reporting, substitution, and a supplier marketplace. Each one feeds the data layer denser as it runs.
The timing isn't a coincidence. The EU's new Packaging Regulation (PPWR) forces every brand and product company to hold thousands of data points on their packaging and report regularly from August 2026. They need a system. We are it.
Today: 3,000+ structured SKUs from suppliers across most European countries, happy customers in every European country we've sold to, ~10 MSEK in gross sales in 2025 (3× from 2024), and a tight team of six — with the goal of staying under ten for as long as we can. Backed by J12, Antler, Almi, Philian and some of the best Angels in the region. The product is built. The market is pulling. Now we are building the commercial engine to match.
We are looking for a commercially driven rockstar and CCO/Deputy-CEO to join our founding team alongside Karolina (CEO and founder) and Lars (CTO).
Think of this as the internal CEO role — the counterpart to Karolina as the external CEO. She owns product vision, the big customer pitches, the investor stage, and the public face of Circulate. You run the company around that - setting the goals, the strategy, managing the team day-to-day, holding people accountable for performance, and making sure everyone knows where we are heading and why. We need a boss.
You also own the commercial engine from day one, ensuring we meet our commercial goals — outbound, partnerships, vendor and buyer relations, and the customer-facing organisation. This is a builder's job: take a data-infrastructure product to market against a regulatory clock that is already ticking, and bring structure to everything else as you go.
You hold the CCO/Deputy-CEO title from day one. In the packaging and procurement world, this matters — you need to walk into any room as a peer. This is designed to be your company too.
Day one — accelerate our sales:
Commercial engine: Outbound sales and pipeline — building and running the commercial process end-to-end against ambitious revenue growth targets
External relationships: Suppliers, marketplace vendors, buyers, channel partners — you are the face of Circulate in the market
Customer-facing operations: Structure, prioritisation, and follow-through across the customer journey
Then — become our internal CEO:
Internal CEO function: Setting company goals, leading the strategy work, holding people accountable, keeping the team focused, and bringing rhythm to how we run
Organisational leadership: Team structure, hiring, and resource allocation — increasingly taking over areas currently held by Karolina and the board, so she can go all-in on product vision, key customer moments, and fundraising
Board & investor relations: Prepping board meetings, sending investor updates, managing investor relationships, and partnering with Karolina on fundraising — she shows up to the pitch, you run the process around it
You have founded or co-founded a company, or held senior operational and commercial responsibility in a fast-moving, client-facing environment. Previous startup experience is highly valued — or, if you come from consulting, you are an exceptionally hands-on ex-MBB who lived in the work, not in the deck, and who has done real things in life beyond a polished CV (side jobs while studying, events you organised, scrappy ventures of your own).
You are a doer. This is a lean, AI-leveraged team — no big bench of juniors to delegate the groundwork to. The work is yours to do, AI is your leverage. Status-driven seniority and ego are the wrong fit here.
Speed is key. Execution and 'just try it out' eat strategy for breakfast. You move first, learn fast, and adjust — you don't wait for the plan to be perfect.
High floor matters more than high ceiling. Startups never give you the time, resources, or setting to do your best work. What we need is someone whose worst is still really good — you can figure most things out and execute them at a consistently high standard, fast, without supervision.
You can lead and run a company — set goals, hold people accountable, drive performance, and keep the team focused without needing anyone above you to do it
You can hold your own with a board and investors — preparing materials, running updates, and partnering on fundraising
Strong externally — you can sell, build trust, and show up credibly with customers, partners, and suppliers at a senior level, and you can hold your own in a conversation about why packaging is fundamentally a data problem, not a procurement one
You create structure rather than waiting for it, and bring predictability to the teams around you
Experience in marketplaces, procurement, packaging, supply chain systems, or compliance/regulatory tech is a plus — but not a requirement
Significant co-founder-level ownership via warrants on favourable terms — reflecting the scope and weight of the role
Engaged co-founders — Karolina, increasingly focused on product and fundraising, and Lars, a superstar tech profile leading our in-house build
A dynamic, fun work environment at Norrsken Impact Hub in central Stockholm — surrounded by brilliant, business-minded, mission-driven people who share your ambition to build real companies solving some of humanity's biggest problems
The chance to make your time count. How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.
Kindly send in your application through this page.
Tell us what you've built, what you've sold, and what kind of operator you are. We value directness.
Join us in our mission to create a world where we consume only what the planet can regenerate, and where packaging waste becomes a thing of the past. We can't wait to hear how you'd help us get there.
Circulate is committed to building a diverse and inclusive team.
