00:04
Nicolai Rottbøll
I chose P.S. Krøyer's Boys Bathing in Skagen, Summer Evening from 1899 because it speaks to my happiest moments in my childhood and even in my adulthood.

00:14
Nicolai Rottbøll
On a summer evening, it's nice weather, and you have this really nice light that you experience when the sun is on its way down. The water is pretty calm. We take that dip in the ocean before bedtime or before dinner. You walk up to the summer house. You maybe make a bonfire, and you gather around and have a chocolate and play a game.

00:34
Nicolai Rottbøll
My family always had and still have a summer house in Løkken in northern Jutland on the west coast. I couldn't even walk the first time I was there, and we still go there every year. My kids would also answer, this is the best place on the planet. It's a combination of summer holidays, strawberries, swimming, staying late up at night, being close to the family.

00:54
Nicolai Rottbøll
I have a lot of family up there, oceans of time ahead of you. It's not really a real summer if we haven't been there. So it really brings me that feeling.

01:07
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
My name is Tina Jøhnk Christensen, and I'm the host of Danish Originals, a podcast series created in partnership with the American Friends of the National Gallery of Denmark and the National Gallery of Denmark. Our goal is to celebrate Danish creatives who have made a significant mark in the US.

01:25
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Today our guest is Nicolai Rottbøll, a Danish founder and businessman. Welcome, Nicolai.

01:31
Nicolai Rottbøll
Thank you so much, Tina. Happy to be here.

01:34
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I'm very happy to see your face, because we are talking online. You are currently in Boston, where you live. What brought you to Boston?

01:47
Nicolai Rottbøll
So, what brought me to Boston, basically, was my dear wife, Lisa, who works for Novo Nordisk, Denmark's biggest company. Here, not really that famous, but more famous for their product. We had the offer in May, almost two years ago. And then in August, we landed with the family, two pets, two kids with schools and everything, and the rest is history. So everything went very fast.

02:14
Nicolai Rottbøll
We didn't at all hesitate. I think we thought about it for two minutes when she had the offer, because I always did a lot of stuff in the US, I'd always been impressed about this continent. So we basically just realized this is a dream come true and let's do it. Although we never had been to Boston at that time, we'd been to many other places. We convinced the kids, jumped on the plane, and landed in August two years ago.

02:46
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And maybe we should just mention the product that Novo Nordisk is so famous for. It's Ozempic, that has become— I guess we could call it a bestseller.

02:59
Nicolai Rottbøll
I guess that's a good term to use!

03:02
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
So do you feel at home in Boston? And what do you do in Boston?

03:08
Nicolai Rottbøll
Yeah, so as an entrepreneur, I've been independent since 2012. So the easy part, I would say, because I've been working all over the world anyways, why not sit in Boston and work from here? I had an employer at that time, Volcano. We started with a collaboration, turned into a flirt, which became a marriage for some years. When I moved here, we decided to put me a little bit more in the distance.

03:38
Nicolai Rottbøll
I'm still associated, but I'm running two or three companies as the main thing I do here from Boston. Realizing even after COVID that the world isn't far away, it's a zoom call. I'm proud to say we've been working over the world, and it's actually really a pleasure to get a change of air, to sit here. There's some pros and cons, of course, in terms of meeting your friends and family, but you're getting new friends and families here in Boston. So it works really well.

04:07
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And you are actually writing a book, something about coffee and meetings that make a difference in the world. Talk about what this project is about.

04:18
Nicolai Rottbøll
Yeah, I guess my life's philosophy always was to be open to people and to be curious. And if you get out of the office or out of your living room and are open for that cup of coffee, it could be a beer or a whiskey. The symbolism in the title is really if you're open, it might lead to your next adventure, your next business partner. And maybe you might even change the world, starting with that cup of coffee.

04:45
Nicolai Rottbøll
So the title is It Starts with a Cup of Coffee – Conversations That Changed the World — just to think a little bit big. And the inspiration for the title came actually even in my first job as an intern in the European Commission, where my dear boss, Claus Haugaard Sørensen, who was really a top guy in the Commission, told me, "Come with me, I'm going for a coffee meeting."

05:12
Nicolai Rottbøll
And I asked, what is their agenda? He said, there's no agenda, just if you want to join me. And I learned that through these informal conversations, not only professionally in the Commission way, of course, it was important to have alliances, but also just to stay in touch and meet new people to get new input, really became a big part of his job and immediately became a very big part of of my job ever since.

05:37
Nicolai Rottbøll
And that led me to do exactly what I've been doing ever since, bringing people together and breaking down silos between people or organizations, make them collaborate. Because nobody can save the planet alone, we need to collaborate about that. So everything starts small and it could be a cup of coffee that actually changes, in the end, the world, to some extent.

06:00
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Let's return to Boston a little bit. What is Boston like? I've been there a few times, but spent very little time there. I went to the so-called Cheers Bar, which in Danish is called Sams Bar, and walked around the city, but I don't know it that well. How would you describe Boston?

06:21
Nicolai Rottbøll
So Boston is amazing, I can say from having been here two years. We live a little outside of Boston, in a town called Winchester. I guess it's a bubble. It's almost utopia, I would say. Everybody is so nice. The first thing that happened when we moved here was that the dear neighbor invited us over for coffee. Another neighbor came with a postcard with names and phone numbers. And the third neighbor came over and said, how can I help you if you want to go on excursions or if you want to do grocery shopping?

06:50
Nicolai Rottbøll
So immediately I realized, this is really nice. The mailman comes twice every day and knows my name. The community is really close. There are concerts and events. When the soccer team plays in the high school, the whole town comes and cheers. And I think this is really what Americans can do and tells a lot about their way. And if you compare it to Denmark, where we might be more reserved, and some Danes might even say that Americans are artificial— I don't agree to that.

07:23
Nicolai Rottbøll
I really love it. I embrace this openness. I feel so welcome from the first minute I stepped out of the plane here. You say hi to the neighbors, it's a very safe environment. I know this is just one part of the US, but I still have the sense that it's in the American spirit to be helpful and to be open to each other. And I think that's really some of the things I enjoy here in Boston.

07:49
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
My mailman's name is Santiago. What's your mailman's name?

07:53
Nicolai Rottbøll
It's Phil.

07:58
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Ha! Yeah. I have the same. I chat with my mailman all the time.

08:01
Nicolai Rottbøll
I even invited mine for coffee.

08:05
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Super nice. Talk about conversations that change the world.

08:09
Nicolai Rottbøll
Exactly.

08:10
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You have a consulting company called Quercus Group. You have mentioned that you draw from your industry experience in international business development and cluster development. What motivated you to start this company?

08:23
Nicolai Rottbøll
After having started and heading something called Copenhagen CleanTech Cluster, today called Clean, still one of the biggest clusters in Denmark and Europe, I felt I wanted to try something on my own. I had a great employer and I was really happy. I was even popular. I was semi-famous as Mr. Cleantech of Denmark, the news called once in a while.

08:49
Nicolai Rottbøll
But I really had a strong feeling of trying to build something on my own. This was still being employed and fundraising and getting a lot of funding and then head that fund and run that. So it came out of the blue and everybody around me told me it was really bad timing.

09:07
Nicolai Rottbøll
This was in 2012. My wife Lisa was unemployed. We had two small kids. Our daughter was less than one year old. We just bought a house that we had to pay for. So everybody would go, Why do you start a company right now? That is really risky. And I can't explain it even today. It was like really seeing the light and a voice inside of me saying, it's now. And my wife said to me, even I see it in your eyes, this is right for you, that's what you have to do.

09:38
Nicolai Rottbøll
So I did it. I called my dear employer and then I quit. I still call my daughter Amanda the chairman of the company because I was actually on paternity leave. And my son Lauritz, at that time, was two and a half. And I keep saying he's the other board member because he keeps reminding me of life that you shouldn't just work all the time.

09:59
Nicolai Rottbøll
So I asked myself, who am I, and what company do I want to build? And that's actually the advice I give today when I train entrepreneurs. And everything went pretty well. The first year I was alone. On the first one year birthday, I employed the first employee. On my second year's birthday, I opened an office in Nairobi, Kenya. And suddenly we were 15 consultants running around in four continents.

10:25
Nicolai Rottbøll
So it came from Copenhagen CleanTech Cluster, which was all about bringing together people and organizations to collaborate for green transition. And I decided, why don't I help similar organizations build, and why don't I help others also break down those silos, not only within a country or region, but also between countries, to actually push for green transition. We got clients from even ones I would never have dreamt about, like World Bank and African Development Bank, that I could only have dreamt about doing stuff for when I started.

11:00
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And what is it that you do for them? Maybe explain to the listener, what do you do for a client like the World Bank?

11:07
Nicolai Rottbøll
So in the case of the World Bank, in West Africa, there's a lot you can imagine of water and sanitation issues.

11:15
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Oh yeah, I've been to Kibera.

11:18
Nicolai Rottbøll
Yeah, then you know, right?

11:19
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yeah.

11:20
Nicolai Rottbøll
So you have a lot of issues and you cannot even count the issues on ten hands. It's everything from floodings and storms and climate change issues, to erosions along the coast. So millions and millions of people don't have access to water.

11:33
Nicolai Rottbøll
In this case, seven countries in West Africa, funded by the World Bank, decided to collaborate to actually learn from each other and to even invite solutions from abroad, not only Denmark, but from Europe and other countries, and the US, to actually help solve some of these big issues. And it sounds easy, but it's very difficult.

11:55
Nicolai Rottbøll
So it really requires that you analyze who are the stakeholders, what are the issues and where are the conflicts, where's the competition, and where's the collaboration. And from there you can actually start putting people together, match them one to one or in bigger events or in workshops. And that's what we do. We do the analysis since people don't know what they don't know.

12:17
Nicolai Rottbøll
We actually try to break down those silos and in the end it leads to everything from business to joint projects to development projects, where a utility company in country A finds a small solution even sometimes in the US or in Denmark that could actually solve some of the problems they had. And suddenly you actually see that making a difference, and that's what we always told ourselves, in the end, creates better lives for people. So that's what we are driven by.

12:49
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What does cluster development mean and how does it work on a practical level? I actually don't know what it means, so I would like to know!

12:59
Nicolai Rottbøll
Thanks for asking. Yeah. Thanks for asking. We all know the word cluster, but a cluster organization or a business cluster is basically a group of companies, academia and even organizations within the same field. It could be life science, it could be sound tech, it could be cleantech, like windmills and water technologies and circular economy solutions.

13:27
Nicolai Rottbøll
So in the case of a cleantech cluster, this is where you would say you have a cluster, you have the players, they all do what they do, but they don't collaborate a lot. So one thing is having a cluster. Another thing is to actually then have a cluster organization that decides to bring together and break down silos between these organizations to stimulate innovation and collaboration in green transition.

13:52
Nicolai Rottbøll
So imagine you sit alone as a person and want to invent something. And imagine the difference it makes the first time you meet somebody else and tell somebody about it and get some input because you don't have all the solutions yourself. So the whole effect of this is if you match organizations and people and brains, it creates miracles.

14:16
Nicolai Rottbøll
It's a little bit also like the book I'm writing. It really leads to something you couldn't even imagine simply because you don't know what you don't know. So really, a cluster organization is meant to actually accelerate, whether it's life science innovation, cleantech innovation, sound tech innovation, or any kind of sector. By playing together, stakeholders more actively can stimulate pace and innovation and development.

14:44
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You're also the founder of Our World 2050, which focuses on children and sustainability. What gave you the idea to create this interactive project and why call it Our World 2050?

15:01
Nicolai Rottbøll
Thanks for asking. Yeah, so this is one of my new inventions. I'm building a social enterprise called Our World 2050. I guess it starts from a number of backgrounds. One thing, I love children. Those are the most creative and unspoiled people on this planet. I just love them and you get the truth immediately.

15:24
Nicolai Rottbøll
Second reason is, I've been working in the sustainability space for 25 years. I've been attending conferences, even the COP15 in Copenhagen, where everybody hoped would be the big deal, which ended up being the Paris Agreement later with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

15:42
Nicolai Rottbøll
But I've seen, year after year, a lot of talk, a lot of good intentions. And I think you see a lot of repetition, people saying we must collaborate, we must break down silos, which is true. And we also hear a lot of other people saying technology will save us. Don't worry, we don't have it today, but in the end, technology will save us. Everything is true, to some extent.

16:06
Nicolai Rottbøll
But I just really believe that we need to change the thinking. I guess it was Einstein in the old days who said, we cannot solve the problems we created with the same thinking we used when we created those problems. And this is where the kids come in, because if somebody is creative on this planet, it's the kids and they're also very honest.

16:26
Nicolai Rottbøll
So Our World 2050 is about actually reaching out to kids from six years of age to 18 and get their honest perspective on the world they wish for in 2050. So we ask the kids, and the small kids can draw it and the bigger kids can describe it. And we're gonna bring cameras and film kids telling about what is the future they hope for and what are their ideas they have in mind. We're going to ask more than one million children to make it big.

16:58
Nicolai Rottbøll
So all these little voices, I believe, will really create some awareness and some new angles, even when we talk UN or World Economic Forum or local governments about new perspectives and honest perspectives, because you can't hide things from kids. So we're going to do three things.

17:19
Nicolai Rottbøll
We're going to, of course, work with the kids, with educational programs, learn them even how to imagine. Because that's not easy. The human imagination went down 30% after the invention of the smartphone, they say. So one thing is to release that imagination. Another thing is to get their storytelling up.

17:41
Nicolai Rottbøll
So how do we actually put words on our dreams and beliefs and ideas? And how can we actually create action? So that's also what we're going to work with the kids about. How can you actually take an idea to entrepreneurship and actually activate that? Everything from big to small, everything from Mom and Dad, don't buy straws, to I want to start an NGO, how do I do that?

18:06
Nicolai Rottbøll
Or how do I fundraise? So we can be big and small. Every little journey starts with the first step, right? And so the second part is really harvesting input from a global audience of one million kids or more. We're going to use AI, I won't bother you with that.

18:23
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
How are you gonna use that?

18:25
Nicolai Rottbøll
Yeah. I guess we are all a little afraid, I am at least, of artificial intelligence. One has to be really careful, especially when you deal with kids. The way we are probably going to use it is, one thing is to reach the kids. We can't reach every kid because not everybody has access to a smartphone or a computer.

18:45
Nicolai Rottbøll
But one thing is to actually get input from the kids. You can do that through the channels they already use with avatars and games and questions where kids are invited to share what are their dreams. And it could be a big dream, it could be a small dream, it could be a picture. You can draw your future and send it in. Or you can film yourself.

19:08
Nicolai Rottbøll
Another way we're going to use it is to then sort out if you have input from one million children — how can we actually create those patterns of, what are the themes, what are the biggest challenges or issues or dreams they actually share? What are the differences between countries and even within a country of these different dreams and ideas?

19:30
Nicolai Rottbøll
And that one we can use to actually visualize and communicate it, which is the third part, to the world. This is the state of the children, this is what the children, our children, say. Why don't we listen?Because those are the next leaders and the next generation taking over what we left them with. So it's also going to be a communication aspect in this in terms of everything from movies to coffee table books and conferences. So, hoping to open their eyes from the UN to all of us, basically.

20:03
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And how do you find something like that?

20:05
Nicolai Rottbøll
Yes, so that question is lovely. I have long experience in fundraising. We are speaking to foundations here in the US and we have some great partners in the US that are on board, because our biggest obstacle is access to the children. We're partnering with a number of huge organizations, NGOs who are already doing stuff in this field, just not the same thing.

20:29
Nicolai Rottbøll
And then we speak to some of the bigger American foundations, Danish foundations, philanthropic foundations, and even individuals, who see a value in supporting an agenda like this one.

20:43
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You mentioned Volcano before. What brought you to Volcano and why did it appeal to you?

20:49
Nicolai Rottbøll
Yeah, I definitely. I mean, one thing is the dear people in Volcano. We met during COVID. So our first meeting was online and we immediately clicked. The second part was that what Volcano does and what we do in Volcano is again bringing people together in new ways. So that perfectly resonated with what I always did, just with, in this case, a different sector, which is the creative industries mainly, and also in the urban development space we work in in Volcano. So that one was ticked off too.

21:23
Nicolai Rottbøll
I had my company. But when we started talking, I decided I wanted to do this full-time, so I named myself chairman of my other company Quercus Group, which I still am, and joined Volcano. One of the things we created as the first thing was something called Danish Creative Industries, which is a platform where you actually bring together creatives, both with each other to learn from each other, but also bringing them together with capital.

21:51
Nicolai Rottbøll
So one thing creatives are really good at is being creative. One thing creatives sometimes are not as good at is the business part. So we added entrepreneurship training, pitch training and the financial level to it, and created Danish Creative Industries, DCI. Even today when we speak, we have another event where we bring together the boys and the girls on the dance floor, you can say, to actually make them dance, so to speak.

22:17
Nicolai Rottbøll
The other really interesting part that spoke to me, which was something I'd been doing before Volcano, is the urban development perspective, from a belief that creativity is, in the end, what makes our cities interesting and what makes people happy. So if we only plan our cities with streets and buildings and concrete and supermarkets, and so on, and forget about culture and creativity, those ingredients that actually bring people together, it's going to be a dead boring city and we're going to be a dead boring life if you live in that city.

22:52
Nicolai Rottbøll
So that is the other part that speaks to me in Volcano, really bringing together and reminding any urban developer who is very historically at least focused on a quick return on investment, changing to a lot more focused on sustainability, including social sustainability, which is about the people actually living in our cities and bringing culture to life in the cities. So that's why we still have a love story, Volcano and myself, on the side from all the other activities I'm running.

23:26
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Do you have a certain business philosophy that you follow? Knowing you a little bit, I assume there's a lot of humanity in the way that you do business.

23:36
Nicolai Rottbøll
I guess my main leading star is positivism, if you can call that a business word. I do, because if you walk through life with a positive mindset, and see the best in people, that's where you get both privately but also professionally longest, so to speak. And it's funny to call positivism a business word but positivism, it goes through everything—

24:06
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
It is.

24:07
Nicolai Rottbøll
— from being open to other people to actually seeing the best and seeing the opportunities, the whole thing with the glass being half full instead of half empty.

24:15
Nicolai Rottbøll
And I guess the inspiration basically also comes from my grandmom, who we called "Mummi," who was the most positive person on this planet I've ever met, and who would probably ever walk on this planet. Whatever happens, she always saw the good things. If the milk in the fridge was empty, she said, How wonderful, then we can buy a new one! If she crashed her car, she would say, Oh, nobody was hurt, this was just a thing.

24:43
Nicolai Rottbøll
And not that she was not serious, she could be serious, but I guess what I ask myself, and even in my family, when something is hard, when something is troubling, we always ask each other, what would Mummi have said here? And that makes it easier. And that goes through my business thinking, but also through my entire private life philosophy.

25:05
Nicolai Rottbøll
To give an example in the world of this whole climate change and sustainability discussion. There's a lot of negative thinking for good reasons. There are a lot of troubles, we can easily agree on that. One million species are at risk of extinction, right? And then, one billion tons of CO2 is being let out. Don't remember even if it's per year or per month. And half of the world's GDP depends on nature and we are ruining it.

25:32
Nicolai Rottbøll
There are so many negative things, but if we put ourselves in a corner with this dystopian thinking, instead of saying, yeah, it sucks — pardon my French — but what can we do, if we just get completely paralyzed, and are told, that's too bad, or how dare you for that sake. It doesn't lead to much action, I believe.

26:55
Nicolai Rottbøll
So, if we turn it around, without being naive, of course, but to something optimistic and, and tell ourselves, if we do something, we can actually create and save and create a better world. We can actually reduce greenhouse gas. There are alternatives. If we invest in restoring the greatest forests we can actually generate up to $30 per $1 invested if we just did it, right?

26:21
Nicolai Rottbøll
And there's a lot of things we can do. And if we forget that it's really bad. If we remember on the other side that we can do so much, the more of us that do it, the more we can actually also make it happen. So that was one example.

26:36
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
We get the sense that you have a lot of experience around the world, but let's focus on the US for a minute. What are the differences between starting a company in Denmark and the US? What are the challenges in the US that might not exist in Denmark?

26:55
Nicolai Rottbøll
It's funny because I would actually turn it around and say, I actually find it easier in the US. I guess it's a personal and a personality thing, but in Denmark, when I started a company, I could meet a lot of people saying, that sounds hard, what about your job, what are you going to live from, who is the client?

27:16
Nicolai Rottbøll
Whereas here in the US, where my experience so far, is a lot of positivism, how-can-I-help-you attitude. And I'm talking about coffee. I'm drinking coffee and if somebody can help, they often and always say, I think you should meet this and that person, let me introduce you.

27:38
Nicolai Rottbøll
And everybody is like, sounds amazing, go for it. So I think at least in terms of my personality, it helps me a lot in the feeling of somebody believing in you rather than somebody being skeptical. It gives you energy, and trust, and a will to actually move ahead and move faster.

27:58
Nicolai Rottbøll
Whereas in Denmark, I did pretty okay with my companies, but it's just different. And people don't do it in Denmark to be rude or anything. It's just another way. And people do it because they care. But for me, it feels nicer to have this wind in the back when I do what I do.

28:20
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Let's go back in time a little bit. You were born in Aalborg, but moved to Copenhagen very early on in your life. What was your childhood like?

28:32
Nicolai Rottbøll
It is true. I was born in the dear city of Aalborg, which is the northern part of Jutland, the fourth largest city in Denmark. But only when I was two years of age, we moved to Ordrup, north of Copenhagen, since my dad, who's a doctor, had a job offer there for nine months, and they still live there.

28:55
Nicolai Rottbøll
So I grew up in Ordrup in the suburbs of Copenhagen in a lovely, safe environment with my older brother, Michael, and my two dear parents. Lots of laughs, lots of togetherness, lots of love. I was smiling, I was laughing, I was kicked out of so many classes at school because I laughed.

29:18
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Me too!

29:19
Nicolai Rottbøll
Good to hear! On the other side, I was a little quiet, I was a little shy, I wasn't really super outgoing. I was slow to mature. When I reached the teenage age, when the first people in my class started drinking and partying, I was still in my Go Kart or in my sandbox, or building dens in the forest. But always in a very safe environment. I was always told at school, Nicolai, he's nice, he doesn't say much, but he laughs too much.

29:51
Nicolai Rottbøll
I remember my Danish teacher in primary school, Kirsten Poulsen, probably the reason why I love writing, because she was one of those teachers where you just get inspired, and she was so good at motivating us. High school also, amazing three years. And then I came out from high school, being 18 or 19 years old. And I didn't have a clue what I wanted to do.

30:18
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
No dreams?

30:19
Nicolai Rottbøll
Tons of dreams and tons of passions. I loved nature. I loved my piano. I could actually play before I could read. I was a boy scout even. I loved traveling and there were so many things I really liked, but I didn't really know what I wanted to study or do or spend my life on. And many of my friends started studying medicine or law or political science. I could even have done that, but it didn't really speak to me.

30:53
Nicolai Rottbøll
I considered being a pilot, but my eyes are too bad. I was attracted to the world of acting and singing, but I hated big audiences. So that kept me away from that. And I ended up actually in the library, that's what you did back then, getting a book called What Can I Become?

31:16
Nicolai Rottbøll
I read it, and at this point in time I'd also been traveling, I'd been doing military service and I still didn't know. But in the end, I read about something called forstkandidat, forest science. And it spoke to me really a lot because it was academia, I wanted to study something, I thought at least, I liked nature, I liked the idea of not sitting in an office when I graduated.

31:43
Nicolai Rottbøll
So I went down from my room in my parents' house and told my mom, I know what I want to be, I want to do forest science. And she was like, okay, sounds great. She's very positive. She's a laughing creature too. And she also said, it's the toughest education to actually get accepted on. You need the highest grades ever to get in and you don't have it. But I believe in you. Of course you can do it. My dad said the same, in a more quiet way, go for it.

32:10
Nicolai Rottbøll
I wrote my probably most important letter ever to date to the university, because I didn't have the grades. In this motivational letter, I apparently managed to explain to them why it was so important for them to take me. And they took me, and when I graduated five, six years later, I actually graduated with the highest degree that year. So I keep telling young people this, it's okay not to know what you want. You might know, that's fine. I wish I had known.

32:41
Nicolai Rottbøll
But if you don't know, it's okay. And if you don't have a long plan more than one, two, three years ahead, it's fine because the world develops, you develop. So follow your heart and then take it from there. And as you can hear, I don't work with the forest now.

32:57
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
No, and I was wondering, how did you find everything you learned there useful for what you do now? I mean, sustainability and forestry are somehow related at least, right?

33:17
Nicolai Rottbøll
No. I loved the studies, by the way. As you can hear, I love nature. I still appreciate getting out. I just came back from Costa Rica, my big dream. But I also realized during the studies that working in the Danish forest, it's somewhat a lonely life. Because Danish forestry— we have fantastic forests, but it's not the best business in the world, and a lot has happened since I graduated.

33:32
Nicolai Rottbøll
I realized during studies, I wanted to get out of Denmark, actually. The world is so big, and I actually wanted to do something else related, but not forestry only. I think the word is Wanderlust, udlængsel. Even as a child, every time we went traveling, I loved it. After high school, I went to France to study French, because I was waiting for military service to start. After that, I went to Australia for half a year because I was still thinking about what I wanted to be.

34:02
Nicolai Rottbøll
I went to Vancouver to study there. After graduation, I went to Brussels, to get out of Denmark, not that I don't love Denmark. I love, love, love Denmark, maybe except the climate. So I guess it's shaped in a way that I hadn't even planned, from having that Wanderlust of really wanting to explore the world.

34:25
Nicolai Rottbøll
Then I got a job after Brussels in The Confederation of Danish Industry, where I traveled 150 days per year to developing markets. And fast forward to Quercus Group where we've been doing things in 45 countries.

34:39
Nicolai Rottbøll
I think it was just a question of maturation of what I really liked and combination of my nature freakiness with my adventure freakiness, really embracing the differences this world can offer in terms of cultures and traditions and silliness and everything. I just love exploring, hence also why I love being now in Boston and living here, getting that different perspective, both for myself, but also for my kids and everybody in the family.

35:09
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Vancouver is a beautiful, beautiful city. What did you do in Vancouver?

35:13
Nicolai Rottbøll
So I took my bachelor's there. Vancouver was a crown jewel in forestry, going to The University of British Columbia to study there. Plus they have nice skiing, so I never took myself too seriously. I take what I do very seriously, when I work with projects and clients, but I never took myself seriously.

35:34
Nicolai Rottbøll
And combining the tree studies, my bachelor's, with skiing every weekend in Whistler Blackcomb, wasn't bad company. You can swim in the Pacific in the morning in May and then you still go skiing in the afternoon in the mountains, right? And nature, of course, is amazing.

35:52
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You've created projects in Singapore and you mentioned Nairobi. What are the projects that you are the most proud of?

36:00
Nicolai Rottbøll
I guess, overall, I'm very proud that a small consultancy one-man show in a basement in Birkerød grew from an idea without a business plan to actually doing things with clients all over the world, in all continents. So in general, I'm really, really proud just of that journey.

36:23
Nicolai Rottbøll
Then I think I'm equally proud of what we have today. Our headquarters today is in Nairobi, Kenya. I'm proud of what we've been doing there, everything from helping Danish and other solutions there to actually seeing that, I believe, we have created an impact. We do a lot of water and sanitation projects there.

36:48
Nicolai Rottbøll
Our flagship activity these years is a big event biannually, where we gather 250 organizations and individuals from the water and sanitation sector. Again, from this cluster approach to actually break down silos, make them collaborate, in the end to solve some of the challenges related to access to water and sanitation, which again creates better lives, better health, and better opportunities for people.

37:15
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
How did that start, going to Nairobi? How did it begin? And what is your relationship to Nairobi? I've been there a few times, I love it there. Karen Blixen also loved it there.

37:26
Nicolai Rottbøll
Yeah.

37:280
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
There is a whole part of town called Karen.

37:30
Nicolai Rottbøll
Yeah, it's amazing, isn't it?

37:32
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I love that.

37:33
Nicolai Rottbøll
Same. It really proved that she was there, and she really put a mark there. So my first trip to Kenya was when I was in the Confederation of Danish Industry. I was in a small department called DIBD, DI International Business Development, where we basically trained sister organizations to DI in developing markets a little bit from Marshallian thinking. So if we help them organize their business landscape, it eventually leads also to better trade relations and development in the end. So from aid to trade, that whole thinking.

38:13
Nicolai Rottbøll
I was young when I first landed there. I fell in love with Kenya immediately. I guess you either get too overwhelmed or you love it. And Kenyans are welcoming, happy, dancing, laughing, humoristic, and embracing people. We all know there are also various issues in Kenya, but I just fell in love.

38:38
Nicolai Rottbøll
And I had projects in DI where I was doing these different trainings of organizations in Kenya. So when I started Quercus Group, from this same thinking as Vancouver, where do I like to be? Where do I really embrace and get that feeling of belonging, but also, joy? And without, again, thinking too much — it's important to think, but it's important not to think too much — I decided to go for it and explore and open, actually, an office in Nairobi.

39:11
Nicolai Rottbøll
The entry point was to take the cluster thinking there to, from the perspective that, if we help county governments or local communities coordinate better, probably it will play everybody stronger. And this is one of the Danish heritages. We always think in terms of not just one winner, but more winners, right? It is really a big part of Danish thinking. So that's where we started and it turned out to be not at all easy, very hard in the first two years.

39:39
Nicolai Rottbøll
It took us more than a year to send the first invoice or get the first project, but we believed in it. And so the simple explanation is: I really like Kenya. I also saw a need and I got that need confirmed and that interest confirmed from the people I already knew there before my time in DI. And then it was about closing your eyes and taking the jump and hoping for the best.

40:05
Nicolai Rottbøll
And I guess the recipe, number one, which is still today, the recipe number one for the success is called Mariam, who is today the managing director of Quercus Group, who was back then, the first employee, became the country manager and that later became the managing director. Somebody there, local, who knows her way around, who knows when a Kenyan says yes, it very often means no, and really reading that landscape and basically knowing everybody worth knowing in Kenya, that's definitely our recipe.

40:44
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Talking about knowing everybody in Kenya, did you know the Danish family who had a hotel? I think it was called Peponi on Lamu.

40:54
Nicolai Rottbøll
No, I only heard a lot about it. I wish.

40:58
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I went there. It's amazing.

41:01
Nicolai Rottbøll
Oh my god. Oh my god. I would have loved that. I only heard about it. And even Lamu is supposed to be amazing. It's still on my list in October. We're going to Mombasa to run one of our events and I want to sneak up to Lamu.

41:16
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Do.

41:17
Nicolai Rottbøll
Good to hear.

41:20
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yeah. Do you feel like a citizen of the world, or are you Danish, are you American, or maybe something else altogether?

41:27
Nicolai Rottbøll
I feel like a Dane, still, even though I've been traveling so much. I feel like a Dane in my heart, and probably always will feel like a Dane in my heart. I think it's really embedded in me, and I had my entire childhood there, and youth. That being said, when I meet with my American friends, my Kenyan friends, and friends in other countries, I also really feel like I'm not just visiting, because I spend so much time with so many different cultures and wonderful people. I don't feel like a stranger.

42:04
Nicolai Rottbøll
And when I'm in Kenya, I can almost feel Kenyan. And when I'm in the States, I find myself almost feeling like an American because of the friends and the different things we do here. And we've been welcomed so much. Deep inside, I will always be a Dane and probably that will never change.

42:25
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And my final question to you is, what, Nicolai, do you still dream of doing? What's on your bucket list for adventures and goals to achieve?

42:37
Nicolai Rottbøll
Yeah, so I think we've been touching a little bit on it. So one thing is that book, I've been talking about that book for five years and now I'm gonna write it, not just for the sake of the book, but because I really think there is, even with my humble personality, there's so much I want to share and so much life philosophy in terms of positivism and openness to other people that I think is really needed and very actualized even today, with what we see happening in the world.

43:20
Nicolai Rottbøll
So this whole thing about not building silos, but actually breaking down silos and that whole thing. So that one thing is the book. Another thing is really to build a global movement embracing the voices of kids in this whole question of how do we make this world a better place.

43:28
Nicolai Rottbøll
I guess I'm actually moving on my current two dreams, which are those two ones. The book will be done at some point. Our World 2050 will probably never be over. There will always be kids and there will always be challenges and issues and dreams we want to embrace. But those two things are really on my bucket list then.

43:53
Nicolai Rottbøll
Then there's a lot on my list of countries I want to see. I even want to come to LA because I've never been to LA.

44:01
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Wow. Shame on you!

44:03
Nicolai Rottbøll
It's shame on me big time! I feel embarrassed even to say it. I've been to San Francisco. But I'm coming, by the way, in April, I will let you know. I want to see so many parts of this country. But one of my dreams was actually to try to live in the US and I'm doing it right now as we speak, and it fully lives up to my hopes and imaginations of trying to live here.

44:28
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Well, on that note, it being amazing to live in the US, thank you so much, Nicolai, for being part of Danish Originals.

44:36
Nicolai Rottbøll
It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much, Tina.

44:39
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Thank you.

44:44
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
For today's episode, Nicolai Rottbøll chose P.S. Krøyer's Badende drenge en sommeraften ved Skagens strand or Boys Bathing at Skagen. Summer Evening from 1899 from the collection of the National Gallery of Denmark.