In this episode, we’re joined by Marianne Dahl, managing director and partner at Boston Consulting Group. According to Berlingske, she is one of Denmark’s most prominent businesswomen, with a long career and senior roles at companies such as Microsoft, Codan and TDC. We invited Marianne into the studio for a conversation about leadership, technological development and the technologies of the future.
Marianne opens the conversation by describing herself as a person of strong opinions who is curious about lots of different subjects and, at the same time, very impulsive. She says she’s good at starting projects and knows about many different areas, but she isn’t always the one who finishes them.
If you have strong opinions and you’re curious as well, you want to move the world
Pippi Longstocking as a role model
Marianne’s interest in leadership goes all the way back to her childhood. In the episode, she explains that as a child and a teenager she was always the one who took the initiative, sat on the school council and got things moving. In other words, she was an informal leader long before she became a formal one.
Marianne explains that she has always had a role model she could look up to in several parts of life: Pippi Longstocking. One piece of advice from Pippi in particular shapes the way she leads: “If you’re very strong, you have to be very kind”.
According to Marianne, being a leader is always a challenge, but she also believes the job should be challenging. She says the hardest part of being a leader is the constant doubt that comes with every decision.
Technology defines every other industry
The conversation moves on to technology. Marianne says that over her career she has worked in and with many different industries, but one in particular is her favourite, and it’s also the one she believes defines all the others.
Marianne explains that the tech industry is constantly evolving, and that right now we’re witnessing a new transformation, where the physical and the digital worlds are merging. She points out that technology has gone from mainly focusing on customers from the outside to being built into the core of the business, partly through AI.
“The intellectual and creative class is about to be disrupted”
The conversation turns naturally to AI and AGI. According to Marianne, AI isn’t as new as many people think, but things have picked up speed, and AI is set to revolutionise, streamline and create value in every industry.
Marianne also shares her view of a future with AGI. She believes it’s the intellectual and creative class in particular that will see the biggest changes. In the episode, she explains which careers she thinks young people should go for rather than becoming academics.