As a child I had affection for numbers and already in 6th or 7th grade I decided to become a state-authorised public accountant, so unlike many of my fellow students I never had any doubt what to study when I grew up. After getting my Master in business administration and auditing I worked as an auditor in PricewaterhouseCoopers for 6 years. I liked the job because there were unlimited academic challenges and a great work environment with a lot of young ambitious people like myself, who were also up for a party whenever time permitted. It was hard work with a lot of overtime but since it was seasonal it also created an opportunity for taking long leaves for travelling. In the end I found it boring to look at other companies’ historical accounts and also I did not approve with the leadership style and constant focus on short term profit optimization.

By chance I got a job as head of accounting in Copenhagen Airports and over the years I advanced to chief financial officer. Coming from a highly structured consultancy firm to a former publicly owned company I was often – in the first years - frustrated by what I considered to be an unprofessional approach by my colleagues. I was therefore close to quitting several times until I discovered that to change the professionalism of company, I needed to change the mindset of people. In this process I became very interested leadership and personal development as well as business, so I decided to take another master degree – an Executive MBA. It was an interesting academic challenge and I especially appreciated the part about strategy and business development. However, little did I know that it would get an immense impact on my understanding of myself, my perception of life and how to live it to the fullest. Integrating all this into my work at the airport was interesting, challenging and developing, but after 7 years in the same company I felt my time was over and I had my last day at New Year 2007/08.

Together with my long time girlfriend I backpacked around-the-world for a year – a fantastic trip to destinations most people only dream of going (see description in Danish under Gamle rejsebeskrivelser - jordomrejse 2008-09). When we returned to Denmark we broke up being different places in life. I got some great job offers but always similar to what I did before and as I was getting more interested in people than finance/economy, it never felt entirely right, so I decided to start looking for a new purpose in life amongst other studying psychology and doing voluntary work. For various reasons neither was possible, so I decided to travel full time in the hope of finding something interesting on the road. I still haven't found it, but as personal development is high on my agenda, I continue to get a lot from travelling, meeting countless different but always warm and welcoming people everywhere. See the section about Previous trips for elaboration on this subject.