Varg Gyllander
SPEAKER CITIZEN 2026 | Varg Gyllander has spent twenty years working the sharp end of crisis communications, advising organisations through data breaches, reputational crises, and the moments when leadership is tested most. His work returns again and again to the same question: what does a crisis actually do to the people in the middle of it?
Varg Gyllander works as a crisis and media advisor, and lectures widely on what he calls the human side of crisis: the psychology of leadership under pressure, how decisions get made when stakes are high, and what separates organisations that hold together from those that don't.
His background spans the private and public sector, from serving as press spokesperson for the Stockholm County Police to advising listed companies through some of Sweden's most exposed media situations. He is a regular lecturer at the Stockholm School of Economics' CEO programme, and has worked with organisations across Sweden that had to navigate trust crises without a manual to follow.
Together with Edvard Unsgaard, he runs Unsgaard & Gyllander; a crisis communications firm built on the conviction that preparedness is not a strategy document. It is a capability.
When it really matters - Communication in crisis
The hardest question in preparedness is not whether to communicate. It is whether your channels will hold, your message will land, and your organisation will be ready before the situation gets ahead of you.
At Citizen 2026, Varg joins Edvard Unsgaard and Anna Teljfors in Session 3: When it really matters. He and Edvard will walk through two practical crisis communication frameworks - the Pixel Method and SOS - before the session opens into a conversation with the audience about what genuine preparedness looks like in practice.
