Flemming Besenbacher to retire from Carlsberg Foundation’s Board of Directors – Majken Schultz elected chairwoman

The appointment of Majken Schultz as the new chairwoman of the Carlsberg Foundation comes immediately after Professor Flemming Besenbacher’s announcement that he is to retire from the Board of Directors of Carlsberg A/S at the next Annual General Meeting in March 2022 and also therefore retire from the Carlsberg Foundation’s Board of Directors at the end of 2021.

The appointment of Majken Schultz as the new chairwoman of the Carlsberg Foundation comes immediately after Professor Flemming Besenbacher’s announcement that he is to retire from the Board of Directors of Carlsberg A/S at the next Annual General Meeting in March 2022 and also therefore retire from the Carlsberg Foundation’s Board of Directors at the end of 2021.

“It’s been a huge honour to represent the Carlsberg Foundation as a member since 2005 and chairman since 2012. I’m very proud of the important work the Foundation has done for Danish research during this period,” says Flemming Besenbacher.

The Carlsberg Foundation’s new chairwoman, Majken Schultz, has been a member of the Board of Directors since 1 January 2019 and a member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters since 2015. In 1984, she obtained a master’s degree in political science from the University of Copenhagen. In 1988, she obtained a PhD from Copenhagen Business School (CBS), Department of Organization, where she has also been employed as a professor since 1996.

Majken Schultz will be the first woman to lead the Carlsberg Foundation’s Board of Directors, which comprises five members appointed by the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters from among its Danish members. Since the listing of Carlsberg A/S in 1970, the five members of the Carlsberg Foundation’s Board of Directors have, by tradition, also been members of the Board of Directors of Carlsberg A/S.

“The Carlsberg Foundation’s Board of Directors would like to thank Flemming Besenbacher for the high level of enterprising commitment he has given to the Carlsberg Foundation over the years,” says Majken Schultz. “I’m really looking forward to working with my colleagues on the Board to further modernise the Foundation by establishing effective peer review, strengthening control processes, and developing the Foundation’s instruments in light of the higher grant-awarding capacity of recent years. All based on the Foundation’s strong values and existing strategy for the benefit of Danish research and Danish society. In the period ahead, I will work with the rest of the Board to develop a number of the visions we have for the Carlsberg Foundation in the future.”

About Majken Schultz

Majken Schultz is a professor at Copenhagen Business School, Department of Organization, affiliated with the Centre for Organization and Time. She is one of the most frequently cited researchers at CBS and has extensive board experience from several different companies. From 2022, her time at CBS will be reduced, but among other things she will continue as PI on the research project Making Distant Futures Actionable – Innovating for a Zero-Carbon Future, financed by the Novo Nordisk Foundation (2021-2024). Majken Schultz will continue as Deputy Chair of Realdania until spring 2023 as part of a long-planned generational change in Realdania’s board. However, she will stand down as a member of the Board of Directors of the Tuborg Foundation when she becomes chairwoman of the Board of Directors of the Carlsberg Foundation.

Majken Schultz will be available for interviews and comments after she formally assumes her position on 1 January 2022.

About the Carlsberg Foundation

The Carlsberg Foundation was founded by Brewer J.C. Jacobsen in 1876. The Carlsberg Foundation is an industrial foundation that supports basic research within the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities. The funds for awards mainly come from the profits of Carlsberg A/S, in which the Carlsberg Foundation has a controlling interest.