Henriette Fenger Ellekrog is stepping down as chief human resources officer at Ørsted and will focus on a professional board career going forward. With her on boards in the future, there will also be a woman at the helm of large international companies. Her clear goal, with a different and more nuanced view of equality and diversity.
Ellekrog maintains that ensuring diversity in a company is crucial to its ability to succeed and is far from being achieved simply by hiring a woman in a male-dominated management team.
“It’s not just about gender. It’s about ensuring that management does not only consist of people with the same background, age, gender, education, or experience,” she tells EnergiWatch.
So what is the difference?
”That’s a key point for me. If we only think in terms of gender, it becomes very one-dimensional. If you just bring in a woman to create change, you may not get it.”
She explains that, in her experience, in a crisis you need to make good decisions. Here, it is important to ensure that management has different perspectives and not just different genders.
“You become more aware of this if you are concerned that people are different. If there are five men who look alike sitting around a table, you kind of expect them all to have the same opinion,” she says, adding that if a woman suddenly sits down, she stands out simply because she is a woman.
But it’s about much more than that. It’s much more than just gender. It can be about the five men’s backgrounds, experience, education, age, and so on. If everyone in a management team looks alike, you get fewer good ideas when it matters.
So it is possible to have five men in top management and still be diverse?
“Yes, it is possible. It is entirely possible. That is why you don’t let it be about gender alone. It is not the one woman in management who stands out, but the diversity of all participants.”
Ellekrog has had an unusually distinguished career at companies such as TDC, SAS, Danske Bank, and most recently Ørsted – all companies that were dealing with assorted troubles while she was employed there.
“When you have a crisis, you need a management team that can come up with lots of different approaches to a solution,” she says.
“As an individual, your gender doesn’t really matter. You can have two different genders, but the same approach to the issue. So I don’t think gender in itself guarantees a difference.”
So what makes the important difference in top management?
“It’s the experience, education, management style, background, and age that you bring to the table. I come from companies that have gone through major changes while I’ve been there, but that means I have a lot of experience, which is why I’m chosen for the job and not because of my gender,” she says, emphasizing:
“It’s not gender, but experience.”
Her career began at the top level when she was promoted to TDC’s top management back in 2006.
“I was the first woman ever in the company’s top management. It was a big deal that was noticed,” she says today.
“That’s why my gender was something I brought with me. I found that I was the only woman among many men, but I think the big change was that they saw something different than they were used to when they looked around the table when the top management met.”
But she has maintained her view on gender in top management ever since. Ellekrog told Djøf magazine in 2007:
”I don’t think you can identify with a gender. You can’t function by just being the woman on the board. Nor do I feel that my male colleagues perceive me as an exponent of particularly female attitudes.”
Today she says: ”But for me, I didn’t just bring my gender to the table, I brought my whole self. I brought my whole self, my commitment, and my goals.”
What was it like to be the first woman at TDC?
“I became aware of the responsibility I brought with me as a leader, and I became aware of that responsibility for several reasons – among other things, because I was the only female leader.”
How so?
“I helped play the role of showing the way toward greater diversity around the table.”
Henriette Fenger Ellekrog was brought into the top management of TDC by the former Conservative finance minister and then-CEO of the company, Henning Dyremose, who was very keen to see more women in management.
”You should never think that you are doing something on your own. There are people who have paved the way for you. But I never felt that I was chosen for the job because I was a woman. It was because I had done some tasks well.”
I’ve heard the prejudice that the HR part of top management is typically the domain where women are particularly suited. Have you encountered this?
“Yes, I have. There can be many prejudices, but first of all, there are many male HR directors, and then it may be because there are more women to choose from when recruiting, as there are more women in this field than, for example, engineers and the like,” she replies.
But she flatly rejects the idea that HR is a particularly soft area.
“HR is not soft management. It is the most important management there is, because it encompasses the employees. You can only realize your strategy in a company if you have the right people on board,” she states.
This is where you deal with how the company is organized, how the processes work, how management functions, recruitment, retention, and so on, she adds.
”All of this lays the foundation for the strategy to be implemented in practice. HR is not soft, and I have never done HR that way. You need people to do it in practice, and sometimes you need to use people other than those you have. That’s the hard part of management.”
She adds that as a member of the executive board, you take on overall responsibility for the line – not just for HR.
You have worked under many different types of ownership. Private, state-owned, capital fund-owned. Is there a difference?
“No, not really. Ownership matters, but the most important thing for a board of directors and also in HR is how the company executes its strategy. To deliver on the ownership that exists – whatever that may be.”
Ellekrog says that her profile has become that she is someone who can handle change when a company is in difficulty.
”Yes, that’s right, many companies experience that. I’ve probably gained a reputation for being able to do something in those situations. Not because of my gender; I don’t think a man would do it much differently.“
And that has guided her career.
”When I moved from TDC to SAS, it was because they wanted some of the same experience I had gained at TDC. So that’s what I went into.”
What has it been like to be a woman in all those top management positions?
”The trend has been that it has become less and less remarkable that there was a woman. It was a big deal in the media when I joined TDC, but today it’s quite common. However, diversity in general is much more of an issue. Back then, Henning Dyremose was particularly concerned with doing something for women, but today diversity is a much broader concept.“
Have you sacrificed anything to be in top management?
”You have to be aware that you don’t have to be perfect in all other areas of life. I would have liked to have done more sports and seen more friends. There are things you can’t achieve.”
But Ellekrog is convinced that some women stay away from top careers because of the preconception that you only work.
”In dialogue with female top talents who are early in their careers, I encounter some myths about being in top management that scare women away. The myths are that you are overwhelmed by work, that you can’t balance it with anything else, such as family life or other things,“ she says, but adds that her experience as a top executive is that she manages her calendar a lot more than a middle manager.
”A middle manager is under pressure from both sides.”
She explains that a top executive also has a management team and a service organization around them, which means that they don’t have to do everything themselves.
“There are misunderstandings about what it entails. You have to set the direction, but you don’t have to do everything yourself. I have met quite a few women who say that you should stay away from top jobs.”
Have you ever applied for any of your jobs?
“No, I’ve been headhunted for all of them. That’s how it’s been the whole way,” she says, adding that this doesn’t happen if you don’t make yourself known.
“My general advice to everyone, including women, is that you shouldn’t wait for opportunities to come to you.”
Have you ever encountered the glass ceiling? From the outside, it seems as if you’ve been standing on top of the glass ceiling. Is that the case?
“No, I haven’t encountered any glass ceilings along the way. It’s hard to know why. Whether I’ve been lucky or something else, I don’t know.”
In your new career, you will be hiring executives. How will you do this?
”Diversity will be very important here, and it’s about more than just gender. I will focus on competencies. A company does well if it has a diverse management team, and if you only think about gender, that’s not enough. Greater breadth and diversity create a different and better quality in a company,” she says, comparing it to how a company must have capital and machinery, but it must also have a diverse management team.
“Today, it is a requirement for a board of directors to focus not only on gender, but also on age, education, background, origin, and the like.”
Henriette Fenger Ellekrog explains that her focus is now on international companies that make a difference.
Many companies want women on their boards. Do you have an advantage here because of your gender?
”Yes, I think so. Based on the fact that there is a diversity agenda, I may be considered, but I’m not getting in because of my gender. I get in because of my skills, but it can be a factor,” she says. She explains that she already has a few board positions as a foundation for her future as a full-time board member.
She will leave Ørsted on June 1.
This article was provided by our sister media in Denmark, EnergiWatch.
English edit by Christian Radich Hoffman.
