19-01-2016

New customer needs makes Topsoe downsize top management

The markets Haldor Topsoe operates in show a receding development these years. In spite of that – and in spite of intensified competition –Topsoe has managed to maintain its market shares. Now the company makes the organization even more agile with the clear purpose of matching global customers’ needs and expectations – faster and more efficiently.

Haldor Topsoe wants to engage in an even closer collaboration with its customers. That is why the company now changes the composition of its top management along with other actions. Ambitions are high. It is no longer enough to offer the best technology – the company wants to deliver the most optimal solutions for its customers’ needs.  

The changes involve a reduction of top management to six functions from the present ten. Going forward, top management will – besides CEO Bjerne S. Clausen and CFO Peter Rønnest Andersen – consist of the heads of the company’s four business units with combined global responsibility for product development, sales, and execution within the company’s four business areas: Chemicals, Refinery, Environmental and New Business. Moreover, the four global business units will be responsible for prioritizing regional and national activities across markets.

“We need to run this company in a more efficient manner, and that calls for a leaner top management group. At the same time we want to match our customers’ growing need for solutions that strengthen their business. We have a great starting point in our world-class technologies, and I am convinced that we will also be a preferred supplier going forward,” says CEO Bjerne S. Clausen.

After the changes, Topsoe’s top management consists of CEO Bjerne S. Clausen and CFO Peter Rønnest Andersen and the four Executive Vice Presidents of the business units: Per Bakkerud, Chemicals, Morten Schaldemose, Refinery, Peter Thoft Knudsen, Environmental, and Kim G. Knudsen, New Business.

Innovation Committee established
As a central part of the reorganization, the Board of Directors will for the first time ever establish an “Innovation and Development Committee” – in other words a ‘science forum’ with direct reference to and with members from the Board of Directors. According to Bjerne S Clausen, this sends a clear signal about the vital importance of Research & Development in Topsoe and stresses the fact that the Board of Directors and top management wish to follow its development very closely.

“We could not have asked for a greater support for our R&D. I find this extremely encouraging and very promising for our development,” says Bjerne S. Clausen.

For more information, please visit www.topsoe.com