Since 2021, Henrik Höjsgaard is Partner at Nordic Interim. He has a long career of international CEO roles within logistics, staffing and healthcare. But it all started with the dream of a career as a shipbroker.
After studying at Niels Brock School of Business in Copenhagen, Henrik became a shipbroker at Simpson Spence & Young in London in 1995, a ship brokerage with offices in many parts of the world. Three years later, at the age of 22, he had the chance to work in Hong Kong and learned about the Asian market. Later, his career took him to Oslo, where he worked for the Torvald Klaveness Group. A couple of years later, he joined his family’s company DK-Fjedre A/S in Denmark as Director of Production and Sales. The company was active in components for, among other things, mobile manufacturing, and telecom. As the company was sold, he was recruited as CEO of the logistics company TNT Danmark, a completely new industry but with great similarities with ship brokerage and shipping. In 2003, he moved to Sweden to work at Busslink Sverige AB, just after SL sold the majority of the shares to the French company Keolis.
The company had too low revenues and too high costs, bad agreements and a purchasing function that needed to be improved.
“It was a real challenge with a complex business model and ownership structure. The role was in fact too big for me with 5,000 employees, but the chairman of the board believed in me and my experience from shipping, which largely also consists of infrastructure with depots, terminals and many employees.”
The company had too low revenues and too high costs, bad agreements and a purchasing function that needed to be improved.
“Keolis is a fantastic company, contributing to our society every day. Once we had sorted out the challenges, it was time for me to leave and my next role as CEO of Posten Logistik AB gave me further experience within logistics and infrastructure.”
Posten had just been incorporated and divided into two parts, post and logistics. His new role was a step up with a larger turnover and more employees. Shortly after, the discussion about merging the Swedish and Danish Post began. Being part of the Group management team, he took part in an exciting growth journey with several acquisitions and operations in eight countries.
“After Posten, I changed industry and ownership constellation again and was appointed CEO of the listed company Proffice. After a few years, Proffice was acquired by the global company Randstad, and I lead the Nordic integration and delisting from the stock exchange. When everything was finished and the role went into a more managerial phase, I decided to leave and work with board assignments.”
Henrik quickly got three board assignments for Posten Norge AS, Green Cargo AB and LGT Logistics AB, and soon he was approached by Nordic Interim for the role as interim CEO for Aleris Sweden. The business was in a critical situation and the focus was on solving contractual problems and structuring the infrastructure.
“It was fascinating to enter an organization as a ‘free agent’. I had no direct reports and could focus entirely on the assignment and work at a high pace. Even though I was only in the company for a limited period, I needed to build an internal network and it was important to navigate the organization and be part of the team.”
Now Nordic Interim has the pleasure to collaborate with Henrik in a new constellation, as Senior Advisor with a focus on sales and growth.
“I have a large network and experience of matching people with professional roles. I am really looking forward to being part of growing this business. I have had both CEO and board roles which makes me understand all parts of a business. Interim Management is a well-known concept in the Nordic market, but there is still a lot to do to make people understand how fantastic this is for the business – to have access to the right skills at very short notice.”
In his CEO roles, Henrik has hired Interim Managers and consider it a good solution when the business, for example, is growing rapidly and projects are to be run cross-functionally.
“During a change process, it is important that the line organization is on the same page, but still perform the daily work. It is good to bring in an Interim Manager, or an entire team, to strengthen the organization and lead the processes.”
With experience from several different industries and companies, he feels like a generalist:
“75% of the work with change management is the same regardless of industry, and 25% is industry-specific, which you learn quickly. I believe that leaders who have changed industry a couple of times, find it easier to navigate in different organizations and they bring valuable insights to the next assignment. You should not be afraid to engage someone who has done the same journey before, but in the ‘wrong’ industry.”