Celebrating 3 years with ConnectingCultures

Celebrating 3 years with ConnectingCultures (and 5 with Brasilienkonsulenten)

A little bit more than 5 years ago, I found myself with my Ph.D.-diploma. Even though I had enjoyed the privilege of spending 3 years (not including a couple of maternity leaves) immersing myself in cultural and linguistic nerdy details, I was ready to leave the academic halls and join the “real world” and use my skillset formed by my academic competences and personal experience from working in and with countries outside Denmark. Before leaving the University of Copenhagen, my last research project explored the cultural barriers of Danish companies in the Brazilian market.

I took the big – anxiety provoking and at the same time motivating – leap of becoming a self-employed business owner. It wasn’t long before the first clients started turning up. Brazil had just been named a BRIK-country, and more and more businesses needed knowledge on Brazilian business culture. Soon, the same clients began asking me if I could prepare something for their multicultural team; do a workshop on American business culture or present something on general cultural differences – and the absurdity of still having the company name Brasilienkonsulenten (Brazil-Consultancy) started to manifest itself.

I vividly remember the day, I was doing a workshop for a group with Danes, Indians and Eastern Europeans, and this was the moment that I decided to open up another business with a new name. I have to thank my network for the fact that the decision landed on ConnectingCultures.

This was in August, 3 years ago, and ConnectingCultures has grown from being just me to me and a large number of country and culture specialist. We have become a growing company, that has just launched a new website to mark our 3-year birthday. www.connectingcultures.dk

Leaving university and an academic carreer behind was the right decision for me, but after a few years, my writer’s muscle began to ache a little. This just happened to be at the time I met Professor Mie Fem? and was invited to co-author the book “Kommunikation i Internationale Virksomheder” (communication in international corporations).

So today 3 years later, I have once again stepped into the world of research, and I am now embarking on a part-time post-doc-project at the University of Copenhagen. The aim of the project is to design an improved cultural training program that creates strong global team members and leaders, who are capable of cultural intelligent behavior in their international and cross-cultural collaborations. 

Staying connected to what’s happening in research makes sense for me personally and for ConnectingCultures. This makes us able to offer cultural training that not only delivers research-based knowledge but also ensures that new competences are used and implemented in the everyday cross-cultural work of our clients. And this is what makes us able to reach our vision: To reduce the distance between Scandinavian businesses and the rest and the world by sharpening cultural understanding and developing cultural competences. 

(would you rather read this in Danish - have a look here: https://connectingcultures.dk/2016/08/20/lorem-ipsum-dolar-amet/)