An extract of my speech to peers at the PwC conference: Topledelsens Agenda i 2025 (The Agenda for Business Leaders in 2025)

As business leaders, we often speak about navigating uncharted waters and steering through turbulent times. But what does that truly mean when the stakes are high, and the world around us is moving at an unprecedented pace?

In a recent speech to peers at PwC’s ‘The Agenda for Business Leaders in 2025’, I had the opportunity to reflect on the complex dynamics between leadership, external events beyond our control, and the growing expectations from society towards companies like ours.

Navigating under geopolitically challenging conditions

One of the unique challenges I shared at PwC’s conference is that being the CEO of a conglomerate like USTC is fundamentally different from leading a traditional standalone company. While all eyes may be on me as the Group’s CEO, our subsidiaries operate with a high degree of autonomy. They each have their own leadership teams, boards of directors, business goals, and decision-making mandates. And this is important because each subsidiary operates in industries characterised by a high level of volatility, where agility and the ability to quickly adapt are essential to their success.

All our companies are united and guided by a common set of core values – business acumen, leadership, and decency. These values have guided us through challenging times for decades.

However, in today’s unpredictable environment, strong values alone aren’t enough – we need prudence and the ability to act decisively when unforeseen challenges arise. This was especially evident when USTC had to navigate two critical issues amidst a global pandemic, war, and geopolitical tensions. Such volatility makes it increasingly difficult for us as leaders to predict and respond effectively, and these combined pressures define the reality faced by USTC on especially two accounts.

In 2021, we experienced our first critical case. A branch office of one of our subsidiaries, Dan-Bunkering, had been selling jet fuel to a customer in the Mediterranean between 2015 and 2017 which in itself did not give any cause for concern. However, suspicion arose that Dan-Bunkering’s customer had delivered the jet fuel to Syria in breach of EU sanctions.

I took away some crucial – and costly – lessons from the Dan-Bunkering case. First and foremost, the circumstances surrounding the affair forced us to confront the realities of our own operations and question whether our systems were robust enough to withstand the pressures of a rapidly changing geopolitical landscape. It wasn’t just about managing compliance – it was about taking a holistic view of our global operations and ensuring that we were thinking several steps ahead. We learned that it is not enough to ensure that our closest partners and customers are compliant; we need to consider how shifts in geopolitical power and global sentiment can impact our entire value chain.

The Nordic Waste case

As we began to rebuild our reputation on the back of the Dan-Bunkering case, a landslide at one of our subsidiaries’ premises set us back by a few steps. A series of events, intensified by external factors beyond our control, turned what began as a promising investment into a very critical case.

Nordic Waste was, in many ways, what we considered a dream investment. When we acquired a stake through our company SDK FREJA, the goal was to add a more sustainable and circular element to our business portfolio. The business model made perfect sense: soil from various construction sites across Denmark needed a place to be deposited, and what could be more suitable than an old clay pit, where the natural clay lining would act as a protective barrier for the soil being deposited? There was even a public obligation to refill the pit – ironically, to prevent landslides.

Unfortunately, circumstances beyond Nordic Waste’s control completely changed that trajectory, and in a bitter twist of fate, our investment in Nordic Waste ended up becoming the exact opposite of what we had envisioned.

When the Nordic Waste facility experienced a significant landslide, it triggered a mass of negative media attention. And once again, like in the case with Dan-Bunkering, we found ourselves in a position where the public narrative took shape without our input.

With no clear information on the cause of the landslide and limited insight into Nordic Waste’s day-to-day operations, we felt it would be irresponsible to speak publicly before we had the facts. However, our silence was interpreted as indifference, and we found ourselves portrayed as absentee investors.

Looking back, it’s clear that we should have communicated more, and much earlier. There were so many things we could have said:

• We could have shared our belief in Nordic Waste as a promising investment.
• We could have shared that, prior to the investment, we had commissioned an extensive due diligence review by a global engineering company specifically to identify and address any potential environmental risks.
• We could have highlighted that the site was operating under full compliance and had passed over 20 inspections by local authorities without any issues.
• We could have explained that Nordic Waste’s role was to safely deposit soil, not to pollute it. And above all, we could have expressed our genuine concern for the people of the town of ?lst in Denmark, who faced the immediate impact of this incident.

Instead, our silence fuelled criticism and led to intense political attention. It is a distinct example of how failing to own the narrative leaves space for others to fill it. And it reinforced for me, personally, how critical it is to engage proactively, even when we don’t have all the answers.

A large part of the criticism towards USTC and us as the owner family has been about a perceived moral responsibility to cover the costs associated with clearing up the landslide. Or to put it in a different way, why didn’t we just inject more capital into Nordic Waste? The reality is far more complex.

Ultimately, our decision not to recapitalise Nordic Waste, despite the mounting criticism, was driven by the need to protect the entire USTC Group. We stand by our decision not to put the entire USTC Group at risk over a situation involving just one subsidiary – one which we had owned for only a short period of time and in which, as shareholders, had limited insight.

The public’s perception of my family’s wealth further complicated matters. Despite what the media reported, most of our assets are tied up in USTC and its subsidiaries. But this nuance was lost amidst the turmoil, adding to the misconception that we were choosing not to act out of greed, rather than necessity.

The pressure was unlike anything we had experienced before. But through it all, I remained committed to doing what I believed was right for our businesses and our more than 4,500 employees.

Today, I can look back and say that these experiences have made us stronger, more resilient, and more focused on our core values than ever before. While we faced significant external challenges, we never lost sight of our responsibility to our internal stakeholders. We kept our employees informed, maintained open lines of communication with our partners, and ensured that our leadership teams across the Group felt supported.

During the Nordic Waste case, our reluctance to communicate was largely due to our desire to have a complete understanding of the situation. But it was also because we wanted to ensure that we could deliver on the commitments we made back in January – namely, to donate DKK 100 million, with DKK 50 million going directly to the residents of ?lst. This was finalised in early June.

And as announced just earlier today, the final part of the donation has gone to “The Fjord Foundation for the Restoration of Danish Fjords” focused on addressing concrete climate challenges. More information about the initiative can be found on the Foundation’s website: www.fjordfonden.dk

Our journey through these crises has taught us many lessons, which I hope can serve as guidance to my peers. As we look ahead, we are committed to applying these learnings to build an even stronger and more transparent organisation.