Summary
Few corporate transformations are as dramatic as Dong Energy's reinvention into Orsted, a company that divested its oil and gas assets entirely to become the world's largest offshore wind farm builder. CEO Henrik Poulsen, a veteran of turnarounds at TDC and Lego, engineered the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy, a transition that reveals much about managing corporate identity change at scale.
The rebrand from Dong to Orsted, named for the Danish physicist who discovered electromagnetism, followed the strategic logic behind selling off oil and gas assets to a UK petrochemical buyer while aggressively building offshore wind capacity across Denmark, Sweden, the UK, and Germany. The company made offshore wind commercially profitable, a feat that eluded much of the broader renewables industry for years.
Looking ahead, Orsted is expanding into onshore wind and solar, backed by a multibillion-euro investment in green energy infrastructure and an ambitious offshore wind capacity target. Falling technology and financing costs, combined with mounting investor and societal pressure on climate action, are reshaping the economics of the renewables industry Orsted now leads.
What does it take for an energy incumbent to walk away from its entire legacy business and win at something completely different?
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