Anne-Marie Skov’s inaugural lecture as Adjunct Professor at Department of Organization

‘Purpose, strategy and cultural identity during transformational change’
On the importance of creating a correlation between purpose, strategy and corporate identity during significant change processes-

The most constant condition for management and employees in Danish and international companies and organizations is change. Often it is significant transformational changes – mergers, acquisitions, turn-arounds or even disruptions – which require change in processes and cultures and structures. It requires a lot of managements’ ability to communicate in a both visionary and tangible way, as well as the employees’ flexibility and acceptance of the necessity of the change. If the change does not succeed, everyone loses, the economic consequences are immense and the reputation of the organization is under pressure.

Based on her experience from Carlsberg, Novo Nordisk, Novozymes and Tuborgfondet, Anne-Marie Skov argues that the prerequisite for successful change processes is that throughout the organization, coherence is created between strategy, purpose and corporate identity, that none of the three areas can be assigned to functional staff, but must be strategically embedded in top management, that a close correlation between strategy and action is a must, and that strategic communication plays a key role. For more than 30 years Anne-Marie Skov has had the overall responsibility for strategic communication and sustainability in global corporations such as Novo Nordisk, Novozymes and Carlsberg, where she was part of the Carlsberg Executive Committee from 2004-2015. She has a Masters from University of Copenhagen and has subsequently been educated at Stanford and IMD. Today Anne-Marie is Executive Director of the Tuborg Foundation and is a member of the board in WWF-Danmark, DIS and The Danish Foundations’ Knowledge Center. She is also on the Steering Committee at CBS Center for Civil Society Studies.

NB! The inaugural lecture will be in Danish.

Location: Copenhagen Business School, Kilevej 14 A, room Ks71, 2000 Frederiksberg

Register no later than October 31 via seminar.ioa@cbs.dk