Client
Init
Year
2023-2026
Building an enterprise organisation overnight
My contribution:
I have helped establish a common language for their combined commercial offering bringing everyone to the table and finding a balance between corporate and technical heart, and a balance between too wide and too narrow.
I have helped shape the Init identity through brand and organisation principles. I have been a guardian of the fundamental principles to carry them with us and held them up as lens for all future strategic development of the group.
Concrete initiatives:
I guided the brand agency in building the brand, by translating the internal dynamics to a brand they could all see them selves in.
I have gathered stakeholders across the organisation to formulate common standpoints on strategic questions. This means they all see the fairness in the executive decisions and feel heard.
I have facilitated the executive management in designing the organisational principles and provided alternative designs for them to develop.
I have led the biannual leadership seminar from selecting relevant topics, to designing content and framing and facilitating discussions among 70 leaders. This is the manifestation that they all build and shape the Init they are part of. The discussions serve as invaluable insights and set the direction for the whole company and help executive management prioritise and "feel" what's right.
I have updated the Merger Integration playbook to match the integration principles, and reflect the platform we have built while driving, and kicked-off the integration process across workstreams.
Seen the impact in practice:
I have learned and experienced what works and what doesn’t when building an enterprise size company. From leadership, direction, organisation, identity and strategy, I have been part of the kitchen that prepared it all, not as separate tasks but as a sum of the total.
This is the perspective I bring. I can help navigate the complexity of an organisation and help understand the dynamics of leadership vs behaviour when building or rebuilding an enterprise organisation from scratch or integrating companies post a merger.
My role in Init:
I have acted as an integrated part of the Init executive management group from day one and for the following 4 years. As an embedded strategic operator, I have helped management put action behind the organisational intentions and strategic visions.
The challenge:
Init is an PE backed buy-and-build company. Going from small founder-led companies to enterprise size “overnight” entails an extraordinary building process of an organisation from scratch.
From building a brand, an organisation and setting the leadership direction, the balance has constantly been to adjust common identity, direction and systems vs. the autonomy that thrives and drives founder-led companies.
This has been a constant evaluation, and for each step of the way, I have experienced the impact of the balance set it’s imprint throughout the whole organisation. I have seen how leadership choices and communication drives behaviour.
My role:
I acted as advisor to the CEO of a private elderly care provider in Copenhagen in a turbulent organisational situation.
The challenge:
The organisation was under high pressure with high absence rates, high churn and a low level of trust in the management team and among colleagues. The challenge was to identify the root causes and implement a structure to release the pain points.
My contribution:
I acted as a sounding board for the executive team in a stressful situation and helped them manage communication with the organisation. From my X-ray of the organisation I identified a very unstructured path of communication throughout the organisation with unclear fora, unclear roles and expectations. To accommodate this we introduced a meeting structure with clear cadences, roles and agendas to ensure the right fora and the right routes for communication. I helped the CEO translate the challenges and visions to the board of directors to get their buy-in to the plans for organisational changes.
Client
Private provider of elderly care in Copenhagen, PE owned
Stabilising an organisation in crisis through structure and communi-cation
Concrete initiatives:
Daily check-in with the CEO to allow him to empty his head and use me as a sounding board
Interviews with 80% of the organisation to understand the situation and crisis
Design and implementation of a meeting structure
Design of material to the board of directors
First steps in the right direction:
Organisational crises are rarely solved overnight. My contribution was to ensure the CEO had a clearer head and a stronger foundation to lead from, and that the organisation had the right structures in place to begin rebuilding trust. Sometimes the most important thing is to stabilise the situation enough to make the right decisions — for the organisation and for its future.
Year
2025
Client
Stem Cell facility
Year
2023-2024
Facilitating complex stakeholder landscapes
My Role:
I acted as a partner and facilitator for the executive team of the stem cell facility to establish a trusted relationship with their engineering consultant in the critical start of the 950M DKK project.
The challenge:
In the early stage of building the next top tier stem cell facility in Denmark, the engineering consultant was onboarded to the vision and strategy. It was a complex stakeholder landscape with multiple disciplines brought together. With different expectations of internal roles and high professional pride there was a real potential of conflict.
My contribution:
I facilitated a series of workshops to ensure a common view on the task at hand and ensure a good start to the collaboration with the potential to grow into a trusted partnership. As a 'third eye', I could help navigate the communication with the engineering consultant and help them take measures to strengthen the collaboration.
Concrete initiatives:
Designing and facilitating a series of workshops with +20 participants with separate focus for each workshop.
Advised on pace and content of the workshops to ensure the right pace.
Helped manage expectations towards the engineering consultant to ensure a good foundation for the collaboration.
A good start takes you half of the way:
As a facilitator, I can feel the tensions and see everything from an outside perspective. With this in mind, we managed to obtain a common vision as part of the onboarding workshops. Looking into a year long collaboration, getting off to the right start is a make it or break it — not a nice to have.