Rasmus: And then I get a phone call from our general counsel that I have worked with for a decade. To be honest, I look at the phone and then I actually put it down again...

Nicolai: Because he had called you, and then rang again.

Rasmus: Yeah, exactly. Then he sent me a text and said, 'Rasmus, you should probably just give me a call.' And then within less than 10 minutes, we received what is called a stop work order, which is effectively a one-pager that orders you to stop the construction of a project in the US that at the time was 80% done.

Nicolai: That was pretty extreme, and unexpected.

Nicolai: Hi everybody, I'm Nicolai Tangen, the CEO of the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund, and today I'm joined live from Oslo by Rasmus, the CEO of the largest offshore wind company in the world. Ørsted used to be a Danish oil and gas company, sold its fossil fuel business and rebuilt itself around offshore wind. Warm welcome, Rasmus.

Rasmus: Thank you very much, Nicolai. I'm very happy to be here.

Nicolai: Now, just tell me about the start. So like 35 years ago you built some turbines off the Danish coast. How come?

Rasmus: Yeah. So first of all, I've been with the company for 14 years or so, so I cannot take credit obviously for the entire journey. But you are right that roughly 35 years ago the first offshore wind turbine in the world was set up in Denmark in a place called Vindeby.

Nicolai: And why did an oil and gas company start to build wind turbines?

Rasmus: Ørsted was basically founded as a merger, if you will, in 2006. So this happened—this was only part of the company back in the days. But what happened from 2006 onwards was that that was the start of this journey from being a fossil-intensive company into becoming the global leader of offshore wind today. So that is really where the transformation started.

Nicolai: But it took a long time before wind power generally took off, right? Why was that technology so expensive for such a long time?

Rasmus: Yeah. Even today, offshore wind is still in many ways, you can say, a niche industry if you look at it in the totality of the energy system in Europe. I think there is today 38 gigawatts or something installed in Europe. So of course, it takes time when you build up an industry. But especially from the years from 2015 to 2020, those were years where we were really starting to see innovation and industrialization starting to happen, and also costs starting to come down.

Nicolai: How come Denmark became the kind of superpower here, which you were until China took over, but you were very big and very dominant both as an operator but also in terms of constructing these turbines?

Rasmus: I think it's a combination of several things. I think what is important for an industry like ours is predictability and the ability to think long term, both politically but also from an industry perspective. So I think all the way from the beginning, Denmark has had that commitment and foresight to offshore wind.

Rasmus: It is a relatively stable political environment. The framework—there have been bumps on the road clearly—but the framework has been relatively robust for decades.

Rasmus: And then also the industry was ready for it. We are a country with coasts, and you have investors today, you have us today. So there was this burgeoning industry ready to work with the government.

Nicolai: Well, I mean, you've got a coast, but so does Norway, right? You do.

Rasmus: For sure. A long one and a lot of wind.

Nicolai: And so when you look at Norway, what are your reflections when it comes to wind power?

Rasmus: If you look at it, if you lift it up just one notch and look at Europe, which is our core region, there is no doubt that there is a massive potential for offshore wind in Europe. We can talk much more about that. If you look at it here in Norway, the challenge has been to get it off to a good start. As an example, the seabed depth is relatively significant in most places. So it's very much floating wind, and floating is still in its early days. So you kind of need that standardized approach to also bottom-fixed offshore wind in Norway and in many other countries.

Nicolai: What about land, like they do?

Rasmus: Land is clearly an opportunity for Norway. Our focus is on offshore wind. We sold our European onshore business, but from my perspective, I see a significant opportunity for Norway.

Nicolai: Now, in 2017, you sold your oil and gas business. How come?

Rasmus: In 2012, 2013, our transformation from being a fossil-intensive company into becoming what we are today really started to kick off. We basically saw a very significant opportunity within offshore wind. The basis in the first years was in the UK in particular, so we basically looked at the entire footprint we had.

Nicolai: But was this some kind of McKinsey report that decided this?

Rasmus: Not at all. I joined the company in 2012. I joined one month before the then CEO Henrik Poulsen. I was the youngest employee in the legal department, so I can take no credit for the decisions that were made. But the way I think about our transformation is very much a question of just looking at the facts.

Nicolai: Just looking at the facts for Europe on climate change?

Rasmus: Yes. The management took, I would say, two or three very bold strategic decisions. One, and the key driver, was to pivot based on the facts, see the opportunity, and then execute it. The transformation of Ørsted is basically a story around execution—execution, execution, not just talking, but changing the core of your company. That is what started to happen already in those years, and then we sold our oil and gas business in 2017.

Nicolai: And for a long time offshore wind looked fantastic, right? Capacity increasing, prices coming down and so on. But then in 2022, something happened.

Rasmus: Absolutely. I would actually move that point in time even further back. From 2015 to 2020, you basically saw perfect conditions for the cost out of offshore wind. We saw what we call, LCOE (levelized cost of electricity) go down by roughly 70% from 2015 to 2020. From 2020 to 2025, we have seen LCOE going up again by roughly 50%.

Nicolai: And that's really in that period of time where you have seen a lot of failed tenders—wind farms that have been won but have not been built. And it is basically that reset that has been a bit of a challenge for the industry. Now it seems as if we are on the other side and we are starting to see the economics of offshore wind stabilize.

Rasmus: Before what I expect will be a cost out again. But what was it that people underestimated at the time? Because other players also needed to take big write-downs.

Nicolai: Was it just inflation? Interest rates? What was it?

Rasmus: So I think, first of all, if you think about it in the context of us, it's important to differentiate between the US and Europe. While we have stepped away from tenders and not participated in tenders in Europe, all along we have actually delivered on our core business on offshore wind in Europe despite these spikes in pricing. The US is a different story for us, and that is really where we have seen the write-downs that we can talk about, but it's important to make that distinction.

Nicolai: Absolutely. But we'll come back to the US. But just when you look at the assumptions you made and the projections and so on, how does it feel to see it playing out so differently than what was expected?

Rasmus: Yeah. The key things that drove LCOE up again in those years were, of course, interest rates starting to go up, supply chain costs starting to increase, and also the tender frameworks changing in Europe, which became a bit of a test lab for different ways to tender out offshore wind. If you combine that with a period of time where you also saw significant interest from oil and gas companies coming in, then you had what I would say was a competitive environment that was not healthy.

Nicolai: Let's go to the US. So August 2025, you've been CEO for 6 months, and then suddenly you get a call from the US. What was that about?

Rasmus: Yeah. The 22nd of August is one of the days I will remember for the rest of my life. That's for sure. I have quite a few of those by the way for 2025. I sat on a Friday evening around 9:00 PM on the couch with one of my three sons and watched TV, exhaling a little bit after not just a long week, but also a summer that had been relatively intense, because we on the 11th of August came out with our intention to do the capital raise—8 billion euros of equity. Biggest capital raise ever done for renewables, biggest capital raise ever done in the Nordics, all on a pretty tough backdrop.

Nicolai: Driven by the US.

Rasmus: And then I get a phone call from our general counsel that I have worked with for a decade. To be honest, I look at the phone and then I actually put it down again.

Nicolai: Because he had called you, and then rang again.

Rasmus: Yeah, exactly. Then he sent me a text and said, 'Rasmus, you should probably just give me a call.' And then within less than 10 minutes, we received what is called a stop work order, which is effectively a one-pager that orders you to stop the construction of a project in the US that at the time was 80% done.

Nicolai: That was pretty extreme, and unexpected.

Rasmus: And the challenge, of course, in addition to the project, was that we were in the middle of the capital raise process. So we knew at the time that we had a weekend in front of us where we needed to deal with not only the project—ensuring the safety of our people, the shutdown of the project, all of that—but also making sure that the capital raise was still intact on Monday morning.

Nicolai: I mean, an unfinished offshore wind project turns an asset into a liability, right?

Rasmus: It does. The way I think about it just in layman's terms—for if there are any people from Denmark listening, they will know about the Great Belt Bridge (Storebæltsbroen), one of the biggest bridges in Denmark connecting Zealand and Jutland. For me, this is a little bit like building the bridge and then being asked to stop construction 50 meters before you build the paying terminal. You have it all built, but you don't get your cash flow.

Nicolai: So then you sued the government.

Rasmus: We did. On the 4th of September.

Nicolai: How does it feel to sue the US government?

Rasmus: It was not a decision that we took lightly. As you pointed out before, I was a relatively young CEO at the time. I still am. It was something that we obviously carefully thought about in the period between the 22nd of August and the 4th of September. We analyzed the obvious pros and cons, but at the end of the day, when we looked at it...

Nicolai: Well, you were a lawyer, so you looked at all kinds of things.

Rasmus: Yeah, but that's not my job title today. So what I did was that I made sure to surround myself with all the right people to take that decision. It was obviously something we also discussed with our board, our owners, and so on. At the end of the day, we decided to file the lawsuit because we just looked at the merits, we looked at the facts, and we looked at the permits. We had spent seven to nine years to get the permits in place. We felt we had a very strong case.

Nicolai: Should you have been in this project in the first place?

Rasmus: Of course, Nicolai, when you look at it now and when you look at the implications on Ørsted of not only that project, but also our Ocean Wind project that we stepped away from in the US, and our Sunrise project that we are constructing now. Of course, Ørsted would have been better off without it. That's pretty obvious.

Nicolai: What was the—if you were to be self-critical—what would you say the mistake was?

Rasmus: I think the way I look at it, what we should have done is that we should have stepped back sooner. If I look at those years—we had a Capital Markets Day in June 23 where we set the bar high. We took the write-downs on Ocean Wind in the US in the fall of that year. We set the bar too high on the Capital Markets Day, we were too focused on volume rather than value, and then we didn't step away fast enough when we saw, or started to see, the writing on the wall in the US.

Nicolai: But generally speaking, how can you plan a 30-year project when government policy can change in the next election? Because it can happen in Europe too, you think, or not?

Rasmus: Absolutely. I don't know if that particular situation that we just talked about can happen there—I certainly don't expect that. But political uncertainty and shifting winds, of course, can. We have spent a lot of time also since I took over to really make sure that our approach to risk management, and our approach to managing those obvious risks that you talk about, is as robust as at all possible. Of course, countries where you have bipartisan support for offshore wind and where you have the regulatory stability that I talked about before is something that we prefer. But there are also many other things to it. It's about constructing and developing your projects in a way where you, at any given time, basically can afford to step back.

Nicolai: So then you raised a lot of money, right? A huge capital increase. Do you think there is a danger that you are becoming too risk-averse now? I saw, for instance, that you did not win the latest tender in Denmark. Are you too careful now?

Rasmus: It's an obvious bias to look out for, no doubt about it. If I look at it from my perspective just personally—when we did the capital raise, you go to your majority owner in Denmark, the state, and you ask for 4 billion euros from Danish taxpayers. Denmark has more than 200,000 retail investors. Of course, that comes with a great deal of responsibility but also humility from my perspective. You are humble, basically.

Nicolai: Do you feel like a state-owned company?

Rasmus: I feel like the company we are, which is a company that is 50% owned by the state, and then we have two other large shareholders, and then we have retail investors and global investors as well.

Nicolai: Was it like the Prime Minister said, 'Okay, we give you the money, but just don't screw up again'?

Rasmus: No. The way it works in Denmark is the arms-length principle. The governance is that we are run by the board of directors. But back to your question before about whether we are at risk of being too risk-averse—yes, there is a risk, because for me it is incredibly important that we deliver on the commitments to all of the investors that I looked in the eye in the fall last year. That's important to me.

Nicolai: Sticking with politics but a different kind. The geopolitical situation has really changed the whole energy situation, right? How do you look at that now? How much of the geopolitical situation is it that drives investments into the renewable energy sector now?

Rasmus: I think it's a very significant driver of the change that is happening right now in Europe. It is sometimes as if one energy crisis was not enough. The second one that we saw and are seeing, sparked by the events in Iran earlier in the year, it's really as if that has finally made everybody realize that the dependence that Europe as a region has on imported fossil fuels, where we import close to 400 billion euros of fossil fuels, is simply not sustainable in any way for the long term.

Rasmus: So therefore, for me, in the first part of my career in Ørsted, we talked a lot about climate change. Nothing has changed for me on climate change—it is the same. Look at Europe this summer, everything is still as urgent as it has been all along. But now it's not only about energy security, it's also about affordability. Because what has become quite evident, also because of these geopolitical events, is that the cheapest solution for the energy system as a whole in Europe for the decades to come is a system that is to a large extent based on renewables.

Nicolai: Are you surprised there is not more focus on it?

Rasmus: I am pleased to see the urgency that I now see. Take an example from my backyard: on the 26th of January, nine Baltic Sea states stood side-by-side in Hamburg and committed to tendering out up to 300 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2050. One thing is the target—I have seen many targets over the years—but there was also more clarity about the 'how'. So that for me was a clear example where you really start to see change. There are tenders coming in the Netherlands, in Belgium, in the UK. There's really momentum coming for offshore wind on the back also of the geopolitical changes we talked about.

Nicolai: Are you surprised that people are talking less about the climate?

Rasmus: I'm actually not surprised, because if you look at it not as a CEO but just as a father of three, the affordability point is very close to mind. Therefore, the fact that fossil fuel imports have shown now that renewables are a cheaper solution is starting to change the picture. And I also think that climate change is as relevant as it has been all along.

Nicolai: Do you think we underestimate the need for power going forward?

Rasmus: I think it depends on who 'we' are. My view is that I see a very likely scenario where the demand for electricity in Europe towards 2050 will close to double relative to where it is today. And if you just look at that and take that as a factor, take AI as an example. AI doesn't need molecules, it needs electrons. So I think the electrification demand for Europe is going to be massive in the decades to come.

Nicolai: If you could change one political decision to get it moving faster, what would it be?

Rasmus: Good question. It would be—maybe it's not a change, but what is really important is that governments deliver on what they say their intentions are when it comes to renewables. I've seen many intentions over the years, many targets. If the nine governments that I talked about before just deliver on what they talked about in Hamburg, then we will be in a very good place.

Nicolai: Offshore wind is less than 1% of global energy. Is that a big enough market for a company like yours?

Rasmus: Absolutely. I think you can sometimes become blind to the magnitude when you talk about offshore wind. You hear a lot of these statements about the number of gigawatts and so on. One gigawatt of offshore wind is 30 to 40 billion Danish kroner in terms of capital allocation—just to understand the magnitude. We have Hornsea 4 in the UK that we are building, that's right now our biggest offshore wind project. It's 135 times Central Park. One turbine is more than 200 meters tall. One turbine rotation will power a family for 24 hours. The scale is really significant.

Nicolai: Yeah.

Rasmus: And right now we are constructing Hornsea 3 next to Hornsea 2. There, the turbines are close to 300 meters tall.

Nicolai: But isn't the trend for an energy supplier to be able to offer different types of sourcing? If you have too many windmills in the same place, and if there is a lot of wind, electricity prices go down, right? Because there is so much supply.

Rasmus: 100%. That's really an important point. When you look at the energy system and you look at offshore wind, you need to see it as part of a total energy system. When I talked about the cost for society going down based on a renewable system, it is assuming that you have solar, you have onshore wind, you have batteries, you have offshore wind, and you also have peak gas for the hours where you need it. And that gives you that closer to a baseload profile that society needs. So you need it all. It's not either-or, you need it all.

Nicolai: But what about wind versus solar? Because solar prices are falling dramatically, right?

Rasmus: Absolutely. But I think the premise behind that question is that there is an either-or. If you agree with me that electricity demand is going to go up, it doesn't even have to double, but let's just assume it's going to go up by 1% to 2% for the next 15 years. You need it all. You need both solar and offshore wind. Offshore wind has the scale that we just talked about. Offshore wind has a higher load factor. It is complementary to solar, as I talked about before. It is closer to the load centers, the industrial centers where you really need the energy. There are so many benefits, but you need it all.

Nicolai: A question which is going to sound a bit naive, and I didn't know much about it until we started to buy wind farms, but is it blowing less? In the UK, in Europe, is there less wind?

Rasmus: No, no, no.

Nicolai: Is it just where we have the turbines? I mean, you are the risk officer. I was so worried about it, I thought I should sell my sailing boats.

Rasmus: No. We, of course, spend quite a bit of time modeling this, and we have for decades. One of the things that comes with doing offshore wind for close to 40 years is that you have an abundance of data—so much data that you pick up from all of the anodes on all of the turbines. There are good wind years and bad wind years. No doubt, this year we are actually above the norm. We model in a detailed manner what is a normal wind year, we track it, and we communicate on it, and we don't see a trend where it's blowing less. It might feel so.

Nicolai: So you have a good wind area, but a bad hair year.

Rasmus: Yes. We may take that out.

Nicolai: That's for you to decide, that's not for me.

Nicolai: So why are you going to win this race?

Rasmus: Today, we are the global leader in offshore wind. We have a distinct capability that we have built up over decades, and the transition from being both an oil and gas company into being a pure-play renewables company has obviously also sharpened that focus. We have an organization that is incredibly good at constructing wind farms in a way where risks are mitigated and done in the best possible way. In only less than two years, we have 18 gigawatts of offshore wind, we have more than 1500 turbines spinning. What you can do with that fleet in terms of hubs and scale is obviously a competitive advantage.

Nicolai: What's the most difficult part of what you're doing?

Rasmus: There are many things. There is not a week that goes by, to be honest, where I don't get some sort of inbound call with something on a project somewhere in the world that is not going according to plan. We are constructing infrastructure at a massive scale, so believing that this is just clockwork is naive. Dealing with the challenges while staying on track is something we deal with, but something that any company of course has to deal with. I would say that the timelines for the industry are challenging. The fact that it takes four to five years to construct a wind farm. The fact that the tenders that were won in Denmark yesterday are for wind farms that will be finalized in 2032. Managing the timelines from a risk management perspective, from a commitment buildup perspective, all of that is something that we spend a lot of time thinking about.

Nicolai: What is your view on floating wind? Floating wind, i.e., they are basically tall constructions which float in the water rather than being fixed to the seabed, right?

Rasmus: I still have as part of our strategy—shortly after I took over early last year, we basically changed our strategy to focus only on bottom-fixed offshore wind. So we stepped away from floating, we stepped away from green fuels, and we sold our European onshore business. So we basically focused on where we believe, first of all, we are the most competitive, but also where we are confident that growth will come. The reason we stepped away from floating is not because I don't believe it will come. I certainly believe it will come, but I think it's going to take more time than people expect.

Nicolai: Is there a good business case for it?

Rasmus: There can be one day. I don't see it right now, for us at least. Back to what we talked about before, it's about affordability. It's about cheap power for the consumers. At a point in time where that is so much in focus, the LCOE of floating is simply significantly higher than it is for bottom-fixed. So therefore, unless you are in markets where you have no other options, then for us...

Nicolai: What do you think about countries which are willing to massively subsidize these types of developments?

Rasmus: Are we talking floating or in general? If from a societal perspective you believe that over time that will bring the cheapest power for your consumers, then it makes sense to me.

Nicolai: And do you think it will?

Rasmus: Depending on the country. In countries where you have a significant potential for bottom-fixed or onshore wind and solar, I would not spend a lot of time on floating. But if there are places where it will bring the lowest price over time, and you believe that, it makes sense.

Nicolai: China. Tell me about the Chinese buildup of turbine manufacturing capability. Since you started in the business, how has the Chinese part of the business changed?

Rasmus: So first of all, strategically, we are not active in China. We are not active in China as a developer, and we are also not active in China from an OEM perspective in terms of sourcing. We are the global leader of the industry outside of China. But that obviously also means that it's diligent to follow the trends in the industry and what is going on, and we do that. Of course, there is a very significant learning curve in China because you are starting to see they are constructing a lot of offshore wind.

Rasmus: I think it's important when we talk about China to make a few distinctions. First of all, it's important to remember that offshore wind is a global industry as a whole. The industry is getting monopiles from China—the foundations that go all the way to the seabed. The industry is getting cables from China. The industry is getting vessels from China.

Nicolai: So why are you not using Chinese equipment?

Rasmus: We are using monopiles, as I said. But on turbines, it is to me in many ways a different conversation. I think, first of all, it's important to remember that the European supply chain has come a very long way. Just the last three years, the European supply chain as a whole has invested 14 billion euros in manufacturing capacity on factories, ports, vessels, and so on. So you should not in any way underestimate the capability of the European supply chain, and our view is that with the global supply chain, the European supply chain can deliver the buildout.

Nicolai: Would it be possible for you, as a partly state-owned company, to buy anything other than European? If you came and said, 'Hey guys, we're just going to buy Chinese turbines', would you keep your job?

Rasmus: Right now, when you look at the frameworks in Europe, Chinese turbines are not part of the mix. And we are active in Europe, and then we are active in Taiwan, Korea, Australia, and the US. So for us right now, it's not there.

Nicolai: Qualitatively, are they on par, in terms of Chinese turbines?

Rasmus: It's difficult for me to say, because again, we predominantly do market screening. When we source, we don't only look at the price, we also look at the strategic fit, the technology, and very much how it fits with our operational base.

Nicolai: Why are the Chinese manufacturers so incredibly successful when it comes to turbines?

Rasmus: As I understand it, again, we are talking about markets where we are not active. In the markets where we are active, it is basically European turbine suppliers. But of course, it looks like in other markets, they are able to deliver a competitive product from a price perspective.

Nicolai: Let's move on to ownership. Should you not merge your activities with Equinor's activities?

Rasmus: My focus right now is on delivering on the plan that we have put out one and a half years ago.

Nicolai: Because you did have some merger talks at some stage.

Rasmus: Right now, just to be clear, we are three years into a turnaround plan, Nicolai. We have a three-year turnaround plan, and we are six quarters in, and we are right now very much on track. We now have firm ground under our feet, and we have a lot of work in front of us, no doubt, but we are in a good place. We are very pleased to have Equinor as an owner, they have around 10% of us still, and for now we treat them as exactly that, as an owner.

Nicolai: What would be the positive sides of a merger?

Rasmus: I don't really want to entertain that, because it's really not where we are.

Nicolai: Okay.

Nicolai: Rasmus, what when you are CEO and you go through the type of periods that you did in the beginning with you know the US situation the money raising and so on just what does it what does it take from a leader to run a company in a situation like that?

Rasmus: I think first of all, for me, I answer this question with a great deal of sort of being humble about it because I have been the CEO for one and a half years. I know us really really well. I know the people in us really well. I know our values. I know our culture really well. So therefore also what is required for us. But I don't want to sit here and try to throw out truths for everybody else managing a crisis. What has been important for us, and for me, has been that I personally focused on four things last year.

Rasmus: Different from the company priorities, for me where I decided I really need to spend more time, it was to set a new strategic direction, and we did.

Rasmus: It was to set a new team, which we have.

Rasmus: To get the biggest decisions as right as possible. What I mean by that is that when you're running a company like ours, and when you're doing capital allocation of this magnitude, decisions that in isolation look like just a project decision are in reality strategic decisions that can define your path for the next many, many years. So, getting the biggest decisions as right as possible last year.

Rasmus: And finally, resetting our approach to communication, internally and also externally. We needed to rebuild trust, and in order to rebuild trust, in my view, it's pretty simple: you just need to do what you say you're going to do. And that also requires that you and your communication are very clear, and you need to listen a lot, but I needed to be very clear about the path and the journey we are on, and also the challenges we have in front of us.

Rasmus: As an example, we decided in management quite early to go out and be very clear about the fact that we had to adjust our organization and reduce the number of people by around 25%, even though we will only be finalized with that by the back end of next year. But I felt that was the right thing to do and provide that clarity to our team so they knew what we were up against.

Nicolai: What does it do to morale in a company when a lot of the people joined to change the world, and suddenly they are in a crisis instead, and you reduce the number of people by 25%? How do you rally the troops? How do you keep morale?

Rasmus: Yeah. A few things. Again, it's important to understand our situation: leading up to the crisis years, the three or four years ahead of me taking over, we had had a decade of tailwind. And then going from that into something that, for different reasons, became quite difficult, of course leaves a mark on the self-perception and even the self-esteem of the organization. But at the same time, what I have seen is an organization that has proven to be incredibly resilient.

Rasmus: And I think one of the reasons for that resilience has also been that our people all the way through have felt a very strong purpose. You don't work for Ørsted if you don't believe in a vision of a world that runs entirely on green energy, and you believe in our ability to continue to be the global leader in offshore wind for the long run. We are not going anywhere. I think this is a long game. So I think that purpose has helped, and as a leader, you need to continue to remind yourself to not take that for granted and continue to speak to that purpose in your communication.

Nicolai: Now, we've started a new thing in this podcast, which is to ask the guests about their biggest failure. What's been the biggest mistake or failure in your life on a personal level?

Rasmus: I'm 47 years old, I have made many mistakes, just to be clear. But if we pick one that is partly relevant to sitting here, it's probably the fact that I many years ago decided to go to law school, right?

Nicolai: Right.

Rasmus: I finished law school. I worked for a great law firm, one of the biggest in Denmark, for years. But I relatively soon on that journey realized that this was not the path for me. I looked around, and I looked at the life, and I just felt something was lacking for me. And so from that realization, I probably had to work a little bit harder than I would have had to had I...

Nicolai: So why did you choose law school? It wasn't like your parents were lawyers.

Rasmus: No. I'm the only person in my family who is not in some sort of medical profession. So the black sheep, if you will. In order to answer that, you probably need to understand how I was raised. I was raised in a family where careers and jobs were secondary. It was important—you needed to feed your family—but the really important stuff was family, sports, and being a good friend. I've never been asked about grades in my life by my parents, and they drove me anywhere in Denmark so I could live out my dream, which was to become a professional tennis player. That didn't work out. But then there was something in...

Nicolai: Is this a Danish thing? The 'hygge' aspect of life is more important than making money?

Rasmus: I don't know if it's a Danish thing, but I think for my upbringing, it was about balance.

Nicolai: What should you have studied?

Rasmus: I should have studied some sort of finance, or something like that. The reason I ended up deciding to go to law school, to answer your question, was because I felt that I wanted to try to have a career. And so I looked more at what that could look like, but I had a little bit of a naive understanding of what it would entail. And also, I didn't know myself well enough.

Nicolai: I mean, I kind of think, in a way, lawyers and finance are the same kind of thing. If you had said, 'Yeah, I want to be a priest or a yoga teacher', but...

Rasmus: Yeah, but I think for me...

Nicolai: And speaking of which, what is something about you that people don't know?

Rasmus: I think there are quite a few things that people don't know, to be honest. I am a relatively private person. One of the things I've had to get used to in this role is, obviously, the fact that you become a bit more of a public person. This is the second podcast I have done in my life. I don't give that many interviews. So I think there are many things people don't know about me. If I were to pick a few things—we talked about it before, I spent my entire youth on a tennis court. We lived 8 meters from a tennis club. 8 meters, and I lived there.

Nicolai: Were you good?

Rasmus: I made it to the Danish national team. But then I dropped from there, but I was pretty good. Yes. Until I was 16-ish.

Nicolai: And how do you relax now?

Rasmus: I live a relatively simple life. I recharge with my family. I have three sons, they all live at home. They are my batteries, basically. So I recharge with them. We can talk a lot about longevity and how you make sure you stay fit mentally and physically as a CEO. And yes, I don't drink at all, I go to bed between 9:00 PM and 10:00 PM, seven days a week, more or less. I try to do a lot of exercise. But at the end of the day, I can take all the ice baths that I would like, but if my family is not thriving, I cannot be what I need to be in my job. So therefore, where I recharge is basically with them, with my family, in different shapes and forms.

Nicolai: Are you enjoying life?

Rasmus: Yes. I have, in my view, the best job you can dream of. I am incredibly motivated to be part of turning Ørsted around. I have been part of the journey all along. I feel a great sense of accountability, and that's a huge driver for me to turn it around. I am incredibly privileged that everyone around me is healthy and happy. I didn't know what it was like to be a CEO—how could I? I read the same books as everybody else. But I have found the job to be the toughest job I have ever had, no doubt, but also the most fulfilling.

Nicolai: You have three sons. What is your—I mean, last question here. What is your advice to young people?

Rasmus: No matter what you decide to do in life, in your career, first of all, focus on what you learn. All along, focus on what you learn rather than just the results, because at the end of the day, that is what is going to get you there. Find out what is your purpose. Back to our conversation, I probably found out a little bit too late. But after that point in time, my career has been different. I felt a different fire. There is no substitute for working hard and being nice to people. You have to, in order to learn, in order to become what you need to become.

Rasmus: And then a little bit of the same, but remember that all of this that we are doing here is a team sport. Many young people in particular, or some at least, have this misconception that being a CEO is a very lonely life, that you are lonely at the top. I don't know how you feel about it, but for me, I don't feel lonely at all.

Nicolai: I agree.

Rasmus: I feel super supported by the people around me. It's 100% a team sport.

Nicolai: So realizing that, the sooner you realize that...

Rasmus: The better you're going to do.

Nicolai: Yeah. It's been great having you here.

Rasmus: Thank you so much.

Nicolai: Thank you. Really hoped you like the episode. If you did, please like it, subscribe, and put on the notification.