Ørsted Completes Exec Team Overhaul

Business & Finance

February 27, 2024, by Adrijana Buljan

Ørsted’s Group Executive Team will see Trond Westlie and Patrick Harnett joining on 1 April following Ørsted’s Board of Directors appointing Westlie as the next Group Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and member of the Executive Board, and Harnett as the Chief Operational Officer (COO) on 27 February.

The appointments follow a decision from November last year when the developer announced its now-former CFO and COO were leaving the company with immediate effect as a result of “a challenging and volatile business environment” in the industry. Ørsted said it expected to name a new CFO and a new COO as soon as possible in 2024.

Rasmus Errboe, who has acted as interim CFO since then, will return to his position as CEO of Region Europe by the end of March and Andy Brown, who has acted as interim COO, will step down by the end of March. The Board of Directors has recommended that Andy Brown be elected as Deputy Chair of the Board of Directors at Ørsted’s annual general meeting on 5 March 2024.

Mads Nipper, Group President and CEO of Ørsted, said: “I’d like to extend my sincere appreciation and gratitude for the immense work both Rasmus and Andy have done in their interim periods. Under their strong leadership, we’ve progressed substantially in both the establishment of our new business plan and in developing our new project operating model.”

Ørsted’s new CFO Trond Westlie has served as Group CFO at A.P. Moller-Maersk, VEON, Telenor, and Aker Kvaerner, and is currently Chair of the board at Arendals Fossekompani, a Norwegian investment company focused on the next-generation technologies within the energy transition, and board member at Wilhelmsen group, a Norwegian multinational maritime company.

Patrick Harnett is joining the executive team as the new COO from within Ørsted where he is currently Head of European Execution Programmes and is in charge of project development and construction of the 2.9 GW Hornsea 3 offshore wind farm in the UK.

Harnett joined Ørsted in 2016 as Senior Project Director and became Senior Programme Director for Hornsea 2 in 2020. Before joining Ørsted, he held positions within projects and operations at the energy companies Centrica and EDF Energy.

Thomas Thune Andersen, Chair of the Board of Directors of Ørsted A/S, says: “On behalf of the Board, I’m very pleased to announce Trond Westlie as our next Group CFO and Patrick Harnett as our next COO. They’ll bring strong international financial skills and execution skills to the Group Executive Team and support the successful implementation of the strategy plan we announced on 7 February 2024.”

“I’m happy to join a very capable company with an important purpose, and I look forward to working with the team to successfully execute the newly launched plan and further strengthen Ørsted’s financial position,” said Trond Westlie.

Patrick Harnett said: “I’m very grateful for the trust the Board and CEO have extended to me, and I look forward to continuing the implementation of our new project operating model, which will ensure stronger risk management, contingency planning, and governance when executing projects.”