Fortune 500 Independent Board Director and public speaker

Lise Kingo is an Independent Board Director at Danone and Sanofi that are both Fortune 500 Companies, as well as Covestro which is a German DAX40 company.

Furthermore she is a member of the Humanitarian and Development Advisory Board at the Novo Nordisk Foundation, and a Board Member of the Board Leadership Society of Denmark as well as the Nordic Boards Impact Forum.

She is a former CEO of the United Nations Global Compact and a former Executive Vice President of Novo Nordisk A/S.

Career

Lise Kingo began her career in 1986 in business-to-business advertising at JP Bureau in Copenhagen and joined Novo Industries (now Novo Nordisk after the merger with Nordisk Gentofte) in 1988, where she remained for 26 years. She served as Chief of Staff, Executive Vice President and member of the Executive Management team since 2002, where she was instrumental in defining Novo Nordisk’s sustainable business strategy. Prior to 2002, she held various positions in NovoZymes, Novo Holding and Novo Nordisk, including internal audit, compliance, people & organization, branding and sustainability.

In 2015, she was appointed CEO & Executive Director of the United Nations Global Compact by former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Mon. The UN Global Compact is the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative uniting businesses to create a better world through universal principles and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

She is a former visiting professor at the Medical Faculty, Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, the Netherlands and a longstanding member of HRH Prince of Wales, Cambridge University Advisory Board for Sustainability Leadership, London, United Kingdom. She has received numerous awards, most recently the Thomson Reuters Responsible Business Honoree Award 2020.

Education

A native of Denmark, Lise Kingo holds a bachelor’s degree in Religions and Ancient Greek Art from the University of Aarhus in Denmark, a bachelor’s degree in Marketing and Economics from the Copenhagen Business School and a master’s degree in Responsibility & Business from the University of Bath in the United Kingdom. Furthermore, Lise Kingo is certified as a director by INSEAD in France. Throughout her career, she has held positions in Denmark, the United Kingdom, Norway, the Netherlands and the United States.