New CEO for Artelia Denmark

Alex Fraenkel comes from a position as Director for Buildings in Copenhagen and will become CEO after a planned internal change.

Artelia Group CEO Benoît Clocheret states:

“For many years, Artelia Denmark has been managed competently by Christian Listov-Saabye. I would therefore like to thank him for his great effort through which he has ensured a healthy and strong development of Artelia Denmark. Recently, this was cemented by bringing the company to the international engineering stage in Artelia Group. This created a solid foundation for the further development of Artelia Denmark. Alex Fraenkel will now as CEO ensure the further development of the company of benefit to employees, clients and business partners and the many key employees who own shares in Artelia Global which is fully owned by employees in the company. I look forward to the future cooperation with Alex Fraenkel who has strong experience after 30 years of working in the company. I believe that he, with his strong professional qualifications and business knowledge – and together with the three other board members – will be able to insure the further development of Artelia Denmark.”

Huge personal drive and professional insight
Christian Listov-Saabye joined Artelia Denmark 40 years ago as a young newly qualified MSc of Engineering. Since then, he has played a crucial role in the development of the company into what it is today.

In 2002, Christian Listov-Saabye took over the role as CEO. At that time, the company had 125 employees, and today it is one of the largest consulting engineering companies in Denmark with more than 1,100 employees spread across offices all over the country.

Christian Listov-Saabye can look back at a career where he has been involved in many large projects – among those he often refers to himself are the “Black Diamond” (the Royal Danish Library), the “Blue Planet” (the Danish National Aquarium) the shopping mall Rødovre Centrum and CopenHill.

As CEO, Christian Listov-Saabye’s focus has been on developing the company to become a multidisciplinary consulting engineering company that can compete with some of the other large players on the market. This has happened via strong organic growth and several acquisitions and recently by joining Artelia Group in 2019. With that step, MOE (which was the name of the company at that time) went from primarily being a Danish engineering company to being a player on the global market together with Artelia Group. This has subsequently led to several interesting international projects and has given the opportunity for the company to bid on some of the really large project, also in other Nordic countries.

In order to strengthen the company’s international profile, Christian Listov-Saabye has been responsible for the name change from MOE to Artelia earlier this year – which will be his last impact as CEO. Since the Artelia name is a well-known and acknowledged brand in many countries, the name change was a natural next step in the process of strengthening the company’s market profile.

As CEO, Christian Listov-Saabye’s mantra has always been that the foundation of the company’s success is the employees. Happy employees are committed employees. He therefore hands over a company with a unique company culture where social activities that support a sense of belonging are central focal points for the more than 1,100 employees in Artelia Denmark.

Christian Listov-Saabye will continue as Executive Director for Artelia Business Unit Nordics and in Artelia’s Global Executive Committee where he will now put his energy into further development. Today, Business Unit Nordics consists of Olav Olsen AS in Norge and Artelia A/S in Denmark. Christian Listov-Saabye will become new Chairman of the Board in Artelia A/S. Artelia Global has a strong and focused growth strategy, which will now be strengthened further in the Nordic countries.

The baton as CEO for Artelia Denmark will be passed on to Alex Fraenkel who joined Artelia in 1993 as a young MSc in Engineering. Since then, Alex Fraenkel has worked his way into the organisation where he in recent years has headed the development of Artelia Denmark’s business area Buildings in Copenhagen, which constitutes three out of the ten divisions. As Director for Buildings in Copenhagen, Alex Fraenkel has created three divisions that jointly provide consultancy within all areas as well as sustainable development solutions to Artelia Denmark’s clients. The divisions are Consultancy & International Projects, Technology & Design and Sustainability & Design.

Alex Fraenkel holds a MSc in Engineering. In his spare time, he likes spending time with his family in their summer cottage, but he also enjoys riding his motorcycle and doing sports – he skis and plays golf.

According to CEO Christian Listov-Saabye, Alex Fraenkel impressed from the beginning, both with his business sense and management skills:

“The results Alex Fraenkel has made as Director for Buildings, his passion for delivering solid solutions to clients and later his decisive role in the merger with Artelia Group have spoken for themselves. It feels very natural to pass on the baton to Alex Fraenkel. He has been part of the development journey Artelia has been on from when our name was MOE – and we were a small organisation – to now being one of Denmark’s largest consulting engineering companies. Alex Fraenkel therefore knows the company and its employees and knows that the employees’ commitment and strong professional skills are closely connected to Artelia’s specific focus on employee culture. I am therefore happy and proud to pass on the baton as CEO.”

About being promoted to CEO for Artelia Denmark, Alex Fraenkel says:

“Getting the chance to head Artelia makes me extremely proud. Artelia is an amazing company with 1,100 skilled employees. It is an expression of huge trust that I have been given the chance to carry on the vision to develop Artelia Denmark to reach an even stronger position in Denmark. The growth and development must take place while contributing to a sustainable development of society where we are already leading players in relation to the development of more sustainable solutions. At the same time, my vision is to maintain our unique, transparent and innovative work culture and continue to aim at being an even better workplace. In this regard, our experience is that professional qualifications prosper in a strong social environment which is why we will continue to prioritise the company’s social activities ranging from study trips to European metropoles and the annual skiing trip to knitting club and yoga while our professional qualifications are developed according to new digital solutions. I look very much forward to working with all of the above.”

Three new board members
The organisational change is part of a large organisational change. With the change, three new members will be added to Artelia Denmark’s Board of Managers.

Lars Hulsbæk will join the Board of Managers as Director from 1 June. He comes from a position as Division Director in Artelia Aarhus. Lars has been in the organisation since 2001.

Janne L. Sidal, CFO in Artelia Denmark, will formally be part of the Board of Managers from 1 June. Janne L. Sidal has been CFO since 2005.

Kim Schwartzlose will also join the Board of Managers as Director from 1 June. He comes from a position as Division Director for Infrastructure. Kim Schwartzlose has been in the organisation since 2006. In this connection, Infrastructure will be divided into two divisions: Transport, where Camilla Hviid Hummer will become Division Director, and Civil Works & Environment, where Bo Schytte will become Division Director.

Jacob Mariager will become Division Director for Aarhus after Lars Hulsbæk.