Meet Thomas Hinnerskov, Valmet’s new President and CEO

Thomas is an experienced leader who has lived in six countries on three continents. “I view myself as a global citizen,” he says. “This cultural exposure has shaped me as a person and as a leader. I enjoy all parts of the world for both their complexity and grandeur. Everything has its pros and cons, and you can learn good things everywhere. I’ve lived in many different places, so it’s also been wonderful to see my daughters embrace the diversity of life in the world. It has shaped them, too.”

What are you passionate about?

“In my private life, I really enjoy travel, and I love being outdoors, doing sports, and being active. One thing I particularly enjoy is going to very remote places and fly fishing, whether it’s in the Canadian wilderness or in the Amazon.”

“In my professional life, a common thread is that I enjoy taking companies and people on a journey and seeing their development. It’s exciting to facilitate customer purpose and success. That’s what I’ve done in my previous positions, and it’s exactly the same at Valmet – it’s about enabling customers to be successful with our solutions.”

How would you describe yourself as a leader?

“I’m very passionate about people. It was a turning-point for me when I led 200,000 people in Asia-Pacific at ISS A/S. That’s when I realized how much purpose really means to me as a person and as a leader. I’m also passionate about solving customers’ pain points and doing things differently. Openness and fairness are a very important part of my value set.”

What inspires you to lead Valmet?

“I was attracted to Valmet because we have a clear purpose. Our mission is to convert resources into sustainable results. This is key because climate change is one of the big challenges of our time, and the outdoors, nature, and biodiversity are very important to me. Tackling these sustainability-related challenges is a fantastic purpose to wake up for. And it’s amazing to have the opportunity to lead a company with a heritage of more than 225 years and be part of defining its future.”

What does Valmet’s customer promise mean to you?

“At Valmet, we have four customer commitments: People you can trust; Solutions for your needs; Safety comes first; and Close to you. I think these are really good, and we live them in practice. Especially “People you can trust”. We don’t walk away from customers, even in difficult situations.”

“Our customer promise is “Forward,” which is about how we make our customers successful. We do it by facilitating their success with their end customers – we help them deliver on their purpose.”

“It comes down to communications. We understand our customers by listening to them, which creates joint respect and a shared perspective of what we want to achieve. It’s not about winning or losing. We do this with our customers with transparent communications, and we deliver on our promises.”

“Sustainability is one of the biggest challenges the planet is facing, with global warming, biodiversity loss, and so on. Valmet has done a lot in terms of its own sustainability by engaging with and developing its supply chain, and by developing its technologies to enable carbon-neutral production for customers in the pulp and paper industries that have access to fossil-free fuels.”

When we listen to our customers, we create respect and a shared perspective of what we want to achieve

“We don’t stop here, and I believe we can do much more to help our customers with our solutions and expertise. We can also communicate what we can do for our customers even more clearly. I hope we can tap that potential with our customers and establish ourselves even more strongly as the trusted partner and as a Greentech lighthouse company in driving sustainable operations forward.”

Let’s move forward together

In conclusion, Thomas has three things he would like to tell Valmet employees and customers. “First, be courageous. Challenge yourself, your colleagues, and your customers. This is how we get better and improve. So, speak from your heart. Second, try to be comfortable with change, even if it’s not always easy. And third, be open-minded. Listen to feedback and try doing things differently, or at least consider how to do them differently,” he concludes. “By doing so, we can all move forward together!”