Stefan Löfven was born in Stockholm in 1957, and arrived in Sunnersta in northern Sweden as a foster child, at only ten months old. He played ice hockey while growing up and formed a social democratic youth club inspired by Olof Palme’s internationalism. He briefly went to university in Umeå but became a welder instead and worked at Hägglunds (a combat and all terrain vehicles company) from 1979 to 1995. He got his first trade union commitment in 1981 and ended up as the president of IF Metall (2006-2012). Löfven has been a member of the Executive Committee of the SAP since 2005, and was elected party leader in January 2012.