“What a game changer” - Thomas Mathiesen on the ALPHA program and leadership

Tell us about your career journey and your role at Hapag-Lloyd?
I have been in the industry 16 years and worked for the first ten years of my career at Maersk in various roles across Europe, Asia, and North America. It only took one very inspiring conversation with Uffe Ostergaard to convince me to join UASC to head up their Key Client Account Program in North America. Coming from a large established global carrier, it was a unique and exciting opportunity to build up a new organisation and support the efforts to expand our global footprint. Eventually the merger between UASC and Hapag-Lloyd brought me to Hapag-Lloyd and my current role as the Sales Director of the Southeast Area.

In our Sales team, our primary role is to understand our customer needs and position our quality services to meet and exceed their expectations. After joining the Area, I took part in leading a reorganization of our Sales Team. The impact of this change helped us to have more customer interaction with a stronger focus on how to drive and support our strategy of being number one for quality. The project helped all of us gain experiences with successful change management – and this is coming into good use now in a time where change has never been this fast and will never be this slow again.

We are currently in the middle of implementing our new Commercial Blueprint and sales verticals. This a great next step in our journey to become a more customer centric organisation and to add more value.

You have worked with other carriers over the years and it would be interesting to hear what in you view makes Hapag-Lloyd special?
In my view, we are truly global and value and prioritize diversity and equal opportunities for all. I believe that maintaining this spirit and becoming even better at it will make us special not only as an employer but also as role model for other organizations. What also strikes me is that we have a clear vision where we are going. And that we truly care about our employees, customers and society. At Hapag-Lloyd we believe in what we do and do it successfully.

Hapag-Lloyd is a great place to work and I really enjoy working with people around the world creating new friendships and gaining different perspectives at the same time. I have experienced that at Hapag-Lloyd I have been empowerment to make an impact to build a better future for our team, our customers, and the organisation. It has been great to see that the company invests and provides opportunities for continuous growth and development given by Hapag-Lloyd.

You are part of Hapag-Lloyd’s ALPHA program. How has your ALPHA journey been so far?
I have always liked to seek opportunities to continue to grow and develop my knowledge and skill sets. After exchanging with colleagues in the program, I was intrigued and talked to my leadership team who were supportive, so I applied. After completing the first admission tests, I was on my way to the ALPHA assessment centre. This was definitely a unique experience. On top of challenging assessments we also got to network and engage with our senior management over the course of two days. It required a lot of self-reflection and I learned a lot right from the start.

Now in the second year of the program, I can look back at memorable trainings in Hamburg and as well virtually. Just like our business, we had to adapt to the new Covid-19 reality and switched from in person meetings to our first virtual global training. I guess you could say we really put the A (Agile) in ALPHA and that we as leaders and as an organization have all had to adapt to the reality and new way of working together.

Like many other opportunities in life, also the program really comes down to what you make of it. The ALPHA program has given me new networks, friendships, and knowledge on how to become a better leader. I think that getting to know my ALPHA class, senior management, trainers and our HR organization on a personal level has been probably the greatest benefit of the program so far. I have really enjoyed not just expanding my network but also gaining new perspectives, information and being exposed to new cultures. I look forward to continue to be challenged, expand my network, drive new ideas that in return will help make me become a better and more balanced leader and person. And now I also need to put the new concepts and ideas that I have been exposed to into good use.

What is your leadership philosophy?
I see my primary role as a leader to help coach, develop and support our team to achieve the best possible result and success. I like to prioritize my time promoting and living our company culture to enable us to have a common set of values that in return allow us to have empowered and engaged colleagues. I aspire to inspire by ensuring that each member of the team understands our vision of where we are going, why we are going there, and what is in it for us as individuals, teams, and as an organisation. A great part of being in the commercial organization is the frequent interaction with our customers, gaining insight to their industry, challenges and business. This enables me to better create and support our commercial strategies and priorities driving success for our staff, customer and organisation.

Has the ALPHA program changed the way you approach leadership?
Yes, probably the biggest development during the program has actually been how I view and now approach leadership. The ALPHA program has challenged my paradigm of how to become a better leader. The most noticeable thing is how I now structure my time and what key tasks I focus on. I am now able to spend less time on managerial or administrative items and transition and more on more impactful areas such as strategy, vision creation, coaching and the team’s successes.

One of the most memorable experiences during the program was actually a leadership course with an external consultant Mark McGregor. This was memorable for a lot of reasons, but I was especially amazed by the fact the most impactful leadership training course I have ever taken, was in a virtual one with people joining from all four hemispheres. The starting point was you as a person. This helped us identify key principles and values to guide our vision on how we want to be as individual and leaders. The personal connection and self-alignment stood out as it solidified that to become a leader at work you have to be a leader in life. I applied many of the concepts into my personal life as well and the positive impact has touched my relationships personally as well. What a game changer.

I am competitive by nature and I like the excitement of winning which has been a key motto both my personal life and in business. However, I have now shifted this to being successful in business and in life. I discovered winning to be binary either you win or your lose, whereas you can be successful long term even when you do not win. This further allowed me to expand my personal horizon and value where I strive to be successful for all life’s roles whether that is being a father, husband, leader, colleague or citizen.

Apart from shipping, what are your passions in life?
Creating memorable moments with my family and friends is very important to me. With three young children, life is at times hectic but on the other hand also full of special moments where I want to be fully present and recognize that I am living “the good old days” as we speak.

I am also sports enthusiast, whether that be tennis, golf or soccer and try to both participate and watch when time allows. In Atlanta, my favourite pastime is watching American college football with my family and friends. While “only” college football, you actually have up to 100,000 people going to these games with tailgating before the game starts. In case you are not aware, tailgating is where you get together normally outside the stadium to grill out, have a few cold drinks, and play games prior to kick-off to get into the spirit.

Last but not least, tell us a fun fact about yourself?
Given that I am from Denmark, which is a monarchy and presided over by a royal family, I thought it fitting that I proposed to my wife while riding up on a white horse. While I hope there were other reasons for her saying yes, I do believe this helped ensure I got a very positive response even if the horse turned around half way down the beach.