In an interview with Orkla Bulletin as he takes over command, Finn Jebsen points out that after six months of preparation he is raring to go and looking forward to becoming President and Group CEO. During this period, he has received a great deal of good advice from all parts of the organisation which he intends to bring with him into his new job.
"We have strong brands and market positions, we have 'human capital' in the form of competent employees and good organisations, and we strive for quality in everything we do. This has put us in our current position as a leading supplier to the Nordic retail trade, and to demanding industrial customers all over the world in the case of the Chemicals business. My goal is to utilise these strong qualities in our efforts to achieve further profitable growth," says Finn Jebsen. "Moreover, I have the advantage that we have stood together, both on the Executive Board and in the Group as a whole, as regards the thinking, the decisions and the business policies for the development of the Group. I therefore feel confident that I have a great deal to build on."
Finn Jebsen has spent most of his career at Orkla. After graduating from the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration in his home town of Bergen in 1974, he took a Master's Degree at the University of California.
He was first employed by Orkla in 1980, when the company still had only 3-400 employees. Since then, he has played a pivotal role in building what has become one of Norway's largest listed companies, with more than 35,000 employees and a turnover of more than NOK 40 billion.