Ulrik Gernow über Leadership, Innovation und Nachhaltigkeit

Das Gespräch wurde auf Englisch geführt und ist deshalb im Original wiedergegeben.

Grundfos places a big emphasis on values. How do you make sure these values are recognized by your customers and your employees?

Yes, the company was founded on a strong set of values and principles which have been re-inforced for many generations. We communicate a lot about them, but you can also see them when you interact with us. Sustainability is one of our core values. It’s embedded in what we do and it’s part of our business strategy. Partnering with our customers is another of these values – as our client you can feel a special connection.

We try to guide our employees by exemplifying what great values look like. In May, we hosted our 9th company Olympics which take place every four years at our headquarters in Bjerringbro, Denmark. This year, more than 1500 employees from over 35 nations participated in this friendly competition dedicated to teambuilding and friendship. Our Danish employees participating in the event must host at least one of their international colleagues. This get-together strongly fosters our values and is crucial in our highly digitized world.

You’ve been building pumps for almost eighty years. Today, you provide top-notch technology for smart pumps and water solutions. How do you nurture your innovation process?

We are relentlessly ambitious. We have the stamina and drive to always find better solutions. This pioneering mindset has been with the company since its inception. We have a mid-term and long-term focus on innovation. For the long-term perspective, we have a team working at our own future lab. They explore new technologies, business models and services that might be relevant for us in the future. We give them a very open briefing on a specific problem and want them to explore different solutions. Then we test these ideas as a minimum viable product directly with selected customers, before expanding the solutions to the whole company.

To provide an example: We found out that cooling solutions – especially in the large Asian market – were often commissioned in the wrong way. So, we asked ourselves: What if we could offer cooling solutions without heating our planet? Our future lab then explored possible solutions to this question and found out that by resetting some of the parameters in our system, we can save a lot of energy. We are currently offering this new solution in the Asian market and are now aiming at scaling it for the rest of the company.

So, the concept of our innovation starts from a very open question which addresses a problem we feel is important and then narrows down and tests several possible solutions.

Grundfos is an early adopter of the Science based Targets initiative. However, small and medium sized companies here in Switzerland often complain that introducing such a standard is too costly. What would you recommend to smaller players?

It is tough to introduce such a standard. The challenge for small and medium-sized companies is that as suppliers although the new corporate sustainability directive in Europe starts with the bigger companies, it will affect the smaller ones, too. My best advice to them is to know their baseline and from there discuss and define where to focus with regards to the reduction of their CO₂ footprint. This is a hard conversation and a strong commitment.

Grundfos as a company and also its corporate foundation have a strong focus on sustainability. For instance, you provide sustainable water systems for rural areas and development countries. What improvements have you achieved so far?

So far, we have been able to deliver clean water to about 20 million people. The idea is to replace hand pumps – especially in Africa, but also in Southeast Asia – with solar driven submersible electronic pumps that go deeper in order to bring clean and safe water up. This is often not the case with hand pumps. Together with our local installation and service partner teams we train the people on-site on how to maintain and care for the pump. We create a community so they can run the pump site themselves. It‘s a cost-effective solution that makes a huge difference out in the communities.

Denmark is a leading producer of renewable energy – especially wind energy – within the EU with a current share of almost 50%. How did the country manage to push the production of renewable energy thus far? In Switzerland we find a lot of resistance towards building renewable energy infrastructure…

First, I would like to say, I personally find that windmills are beautiful. They are an obvious sign of our environmental care. One of the main reasons why Denmark is at the forefront of producing renewable energy is because for years the government and legislation have been setting very high standards and have been providing incentives for companies to invest in green technology. We have one of the world’s most efficient water sectors, meaning we only have about five percent of non-revenue water. In addition, there are several visionary companies and leaders who take climate issues seriously and drive innovation. I think we have now reached a tipping point where this development goes beyond vision, but also creates profitable business.

What impact does the actual geopolitical situation have on your business?

With regards to the Ukrainian war, we decided in 2022 to stop our business in Russia and leave the country – taking a loss of over 100 million Swiss francs. Although we had a strong and growing Russian business, we just felt it was wrong to be there any longer. We have to be driven by our values when deciding on what’s right or wrong in this geopolitical navigation.

But it’s also about identifying the hot spots in the world that will possibly affect your business. You have to do your risk assessment. In- creasing trade protectionism is a major force and means you may have to rearrange your supply chains and, for most significant risk areas, build resiliency into your set-up.

stars Switzerland symposium kommt in den Thurgau

stars wurde 2008 mit dem Zweck gegründet, einen Beitrag zur Entwicklung der Top-Führungskräfte von morgen zu leisten. Im Rahmen von drei jährlichen Konferenzen in der Schweiz, China und in Singapore bringt stars internationale Führungskräfte zusammen, um während der dreitägigen Symposien gemeinsam mit renommierten Speakern die brennenden Herausforderungen der nahen Zukunft zu erörtern. Die Teilnehmenden stammen hauptsächlich aus unterschiedlichen Branchen der Wirtschaft, aber auch aus der Wissenschaft Politik und NGOs. Auf der Agenda stehen Themen wie die geopolitischen und geoökonomischen Entwicklungen, disruptive Technologien, Nachhaltigkeit oder Leadership.

Ab 2024 wird die Schweizer Konferenz im Seminar- und Konferenzzentrum Wolfsberg im Thurgau stattfinden (4.-7. September 2024), wobei die IHK und stars im Rahmen des Symposiums eine gemeinsame Veranstaltung für regionale Wirtschaftsvertreter planen.

 Mehr Information unter www.the-stars.ch