Speaker details

Biography

Caroline Pontoppidan, SVP, Head of Corporate Affairs Caroline Pontoppidan is a Danish and US lawyer with a Danish legal education as well as a L.LM from Duke University, N.C. She is admitted to the Danish, N.Y and the Washington Bar. She joined Maersk from Danish law firm Kromann Reumert, where she started in 1993 and became equity partner in 2000 (area: M&A). Before Kromann Reumert, Caroline was Assistant Attorney at the intellectual property firm Libermann Nowark in New York. Caroline Pontoppidan joined Maersk Line as General Counsel in 2013. Three years later she was promoted to Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Head of Corporate Affairs for A.P. Møller – Maersk. Caroline reports to CEO, Søren Skou and is part of A.P. Moller – Maersk Extended Executive Board. A.P. Moller - Maersk is in the middle of a comprehensive corporate transformation, which in the first years has included significant acquisitions as well as divestments, and here Caroline's unique expertise has played a crucial role. At the same time, Caroline and her teams have a key role in running the integration, where staff functions across business units are merged into global units, and where several business areas are merged. An example of this is the integration of Damco supply chain services and Maersk Line Ocean product, which from 1 January 2019 marked a milestone going to market as One Company “Maersk”. This internal merger is a first step and key part of Maersk’s strategy to grow the non-Ocean part of the business. In addition, Caroline and her teams have been the driving force in the successful acquisition of Hamburg Süd for an amount of EUR 3.7 billion and the divestiture of the Energy businesses, the sale of both Maersk Tankers in 2017 (USD 1.2 billion) and Maersk Oil in 2018 (USD 7.45 billion) as well as the IPO of Maersk Drilling in 2019. The divestments, the acquisition and the internal restructuring are all important milestones on Maersk’s journey of becoming the global integrator of container transportation and logistics enabling global trade in an efficient, digitized, simple and sustainable way. Caroline is a valued and professional leader with an eye for the dynamics of a large company and an ability to always put the company first.