DLG's Group CFO, Christina Nielsen, turns 40 years old

Christina Nielsen has always moved at a fast pace, but it was not a child's dream that she would make a career as an accountant and move quickly up the career ladder. Nevertheless, that is what she has done. In less than two decades she has made her way up from a position as an audit assistant to being the Group CFO in one of Denmark's largest companies, DLG Group.

Christina Nielsen dreamed of becoming a structural engineer or studying law, while her mother believed that she should train as an optician. However, it was a teacher at the 1-year business school education, which she attended after high school graduation, who set her on the career path, when he opened her eyes to business economics and the accounting profession. In 2003 she started as an accountant's assistant at Deloitte, one of the world’s leading accounting firms, in 2009 she got her MSc in Business Economics and Auditing from Copenhagen Business School, and in 2013 she became a state authorized accountant.

In the intervening years, she worked her way up the career ladder at Deloitte, where she in 2014 was appointed Senior Manager and made the Talent 100 list of the leading Danish Newspaper Berlingske. Here she was described by one of Deloitte’s partners as "a professionally bright profile who at a young age has achieved more than most and stands on the threshold of a great future."

As an accountant and advisor at Deloitte, Christina Nielsen worked with DLG for more than 10 years, which gave her an in-depth knowledge of the group and close relationships were formed over the years. Thus, she didn't need much time to think when she was offered a position as Executive Vice President at DLG in 2015. In that role, she helped to professionalize the DLG Group's finance and accounting function, where, among other things, she spearheaded a closer collaboration between finance and the business, as well as across companies and countries in the DLG Group. This gave her a wide network in the group, where she was recognized for the strong results, she delivered.

When her first child was due in the end of 2019, it coincided with DLG's impending move from Copenhagen to Fredericia, and Christina Nielsen chose to leave DLG to devote herself to family and board work for a period. Shortly after her second child was born in the spring of 2021, she got the opportunity to return to DLG, this time as Group CFO. She accepted the offer and returned to DLG Group in October 2021.

Although compliance, finance and numbers naturally take up a lot of space for a Group CFO, Christina Nielsen is also responsible for IT and digitalisation, which are areas that play an increasingly important role. So does sustainability, where both the reporting part and the sustainable business development is in focus for the CFO.

In her childhood home in the Capital Region of Denmark, it was often politics and social affairs that were discussed over the dinner table. The parents, who are both watchmakers, have sent their children out into the world with an awareness that there must be equal opportunities for everyone. This is something that Christina has taken with her into her working life, where she is also driven to ensure diversity and inclusion in an otherwise traditional industry.

In a busy everyday life, free time is devoted to the family, which in addition to her husband, Dan, and the joint children also includes a bonus son. They like to spend time together out in the fresh air or together over their shared passion for building with Lego blocks.

The round birthday is celebrated privately.