Kat­rine Wind­ing on Lead­ing Through Change

Katrine Winding is the Director General of the Danish Business Authority (Erhvervsstyrelsen), an institution that works to make it easy and attractive to run a responsible business in Denmark. The Authority oversees corporate law and provides policy frameworks and funding to support small and medium-sized enterprises. For Katrine, change is not new – it has always been part of public administration. Yet, she acknowledges that the scale and speed of today’s transformations are unprecedented. “The sustainability crisis, geopolitical tensions, and technological development are all reshaping how we act as a business authority,” she explains. “The pace of change is accelerating, and we must adjust quickly to situations we cannot foresee far in advance.” 

As a leader, Katrine sees her role as enabling her organisation to remain both confident and adaptable in this fast-changing landscape. “You need to build on the professional skills you already have,” she says, “but also stay curious and open-minded about new possibilities.” Drawing lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic, she highlights the importance of a strong organisational foundation – one capable of collaboration across disciplines and ready to reapply existing skills and digital tools in new contexts. “It’s not about becoming a different organisation,” she reflects. “It’s about having an organisation that can shift focus fast.” 

In such a shifting environment, Katrine believes leadership depends on balancing acts – between stability and innovation, efficiency and reflection, trust and exploration. “For us, trustworthiness and compliance are our license to operate,” she explains. “But at the same time, we need to stay relevant, find new solutions to new problems, and use technology in creative ways.” This balancing act requires leaders to combine executional efficiency with the ability to gather diverse perspectives. “You must be able to act quickly,” she says, “but also ensure you act on the right solutions – and that demands different viewpoints from both inside and outside the organisation.” 

At the heart of Katrine’s leadership philosophy is collaboration – not just as a practice, but as a mindset. “You have to be able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes,” she says. “Understand what challenges people from other sectors face and how their problems relate to your own work.” True collaboration, in her view, demands curiosity, empathy, and humility – the willingness to accept that no single profession has all the answers. “The legal adviser needs the data scientist, who needs the IT expert,” she explains. “And even though their ways of working are different, they must work closely together if they want to use new technology effectively.” 

Katrine Winding’s reflections remind us that leadership in complex systems is not about predicting the future but preparing for it – through trust, openness, and collaboration. By combining professional confidence with curiosity, leaders can create organisations capable of thriving amid uncertainty.