CIO Insights: Morten Holm Christiansen, Topsoe

Meet the transformational CIOs who are currently leading their businesses into the digital future. 

Explore their most important initiatives, leadership goals, and how they see their roles evolving in the near future. 

This time, in CIO Insights, we feature Morten Holm Christiansen, Chief Transformation Officer at Topsoe.

Leadership is about the people you lead, not the transformations you make

As CTO of Topsoe, Morten Holm Christiansen is driving AI adoption, digital R&D, and a global IT transformation – proving that technology’s true value lies in the people who bring it to life. 

‚In any change, in any development of business and organizations, people are the only thing that really matters.‛ This is both the key takeaway and leadership north star that Morten Holm Christiansen derived from his extensive work experience and his head-on start at Topsoe in 2021 during Covid, amidst a restructuring of the IT department. His focus was on understanding how to establish a coherent, functional, and self-contained organization split between Denmark and India, assessing the capabilities of that organization, and developing an operating model. Drawing on his experience from a cyberattack at Maersk that severely impacted the company, he also prioritized bringing in external consultancies to assist with a security evaluation, strategy, and a cost benchmark for operations:

‚It all gave me a basis for a conversation with the executive management team about what needed to be done both in terms of reshaping Topsoe’s digital strategy and retooling the company’s IT platforms. 

At the same time, it was clear we needed to examine the relationship between the IT-organization and the business organization because it was nearly non-existent, if at all. There were pockets of good cooperation, for sure, but we needed to spend some time on understanding many aspects of the business side: our customers, their agenda, their needs. Because at the end of the day, IT doesn’t really have value in itself. The value lies in how it can help the business, so by building relationships, fostering understanding, and maintaining a humble approach, we recognized that our role was to serve others. Our value was in how we could support our production, our sales force, and our customers.‛

Building relationships based on deep business understanding led Morten and his team to the next step, bringing them closer to becoming in fact an integral part of the business:

‚We invested heavily in the digitalization of our R&D. Topsoe is founded on R&D, and our purpose is perfecting chemistry for a better world. We are scientists. And we have brilliant scientists, which makes our products superior. So, our focus was on how to enhance that superiority from a digital standpoint. We built an R&D digital organization, which has proven to be a highly beneficial and timely move, as it also created the foundation for using AI in R&D. Our initial steps were relatively simple: the primary task was making data accessible across R&D. Previously, data was largely personal to scientists and labs. Next, we developed standardized analysis tools, making them available to all our scientists so they could easily adopt new and advanced technologies.’

It was not an easy journey to embark on, but from Morten’s point of view, there was a helping hand to be found in where in the organisation it was set in motion: 

‘We were fortunate in terms of communication and ownership, as the initiative originated from R&D, following that we in IT stepped in, took ownership, and drove it forward. Of course, there was some scepticism because our scientists are highly specialised and have followed established methods for years. We have world-class expertise in highly specialised areas, so introducing new ways of working was a challenge. Additionally, there was a significant historical disconnect between the IT and R&D organisations. IT in a sense focuses on standards, policies, and efficiency, while R&D is centred on creativity, experimentation, and openness to external ideas. This longstanding conflict had to be addressed – and shut down – by establishing a different type of relationship.’

And so while R&D and IT found each other, Morten also focused on making investments in the future, in a digital twin solution. Topsoe has now built around 1,000 facilities worldwide, primarily involving chemical reactors that transform input materials into other substances, while it in the past primarily was crude oil and natural gas as opposed to today, where it is increasingly renewables: 

‘We have developed a product called ClearView, which livestreams operational data from customers‛ units and enriches it using simulation models. In other words, it creates a digital replica of the customer’s facility, enabling our engineers to optimize their processes. With the help of our brilliant data scientists, we took a completely new step in the value chain, strengthening customer relationships and cementing IT as a core part of the business.‛

However, there are many more steps to take, and one path is clear for Morten and his team: AI is the way to move even more forward:

‚We were early adopters of AI, and when ChatGPT was introduced in early 2023 at a CIO Transformation Board meeting, I immediately returned to Topsoe and began promoting it and presented mock-ups and examples to the board. They were as excited as we were about the efficiency potential and the ability to leverage our collective memory and experience to save time and increase productivity in ways we are still exploring. It is fascinating to see technology become available in ways we had not imagined. But experimentation is crucial. Our team engaged with the entire organisation, showcasing examples and asking employees where they thought AI could assist them. As a result, we received around 180 different ideas from across the company and selected 15 of them for pilot projects.’

But Morten and his team are well aware that they are walking a fine line when it comes to how far they can go into the AI future and at what speed: 

‘It is a delicate balance between experimentation and safeguarding our data. I see it as a controlled opening of the doors: We established our internal AI environment, and now 2,600 out of 3,000 employees are using our ChatGPT solution, with 27 serious experiments currently being researched – ideas that have emerged from across the company. AI is a key technology for our future. If we are not among the best in this field, we will be left behind. AI and quantum computing are part of our future, and the fact that our CEO regularly emphasises this helps solidify the foundation for its development.‛

Looking ahead – even trying to predict a little of the future, is a key aspect of Morten’s role as CTO:

‚Leadership is about establishing a vision of what the world could look like and creating enthusiasm around it. Then, it’s about enabling the entire organisation to work towards that vision. I have seen brilliant ideas fail simply due to poor timing and lack of support. The key is not just knowing where to go but rallying the entire organisation around something unknown and aspirational. This becomes even more important in a world where change is happening rapidly on the global scale, impacting business and digital transformation alike. However, at the end of the day, the real core—and the truly exciting aspect of leadership—is that it is all about the people you lead, not the transformations you make. Technologies come and go. If you get the right people, engage them in a strong company culture, and motivate them, you will succeed. Every major success ultimately comes down to the people who made it happen.‛ 

When asked about a leadership skill that truly makes a difference, Morten points to something difficult to quantify in a CV:

‚Of course, a leader must have the drive to lead—but also a gut feeling for right and wrong. When I look at people whom I consider to be true, admirable leaders, they all have a very clear compass and strong instincts. You could say that in leadership, eyesight is deeply connected to the stomach. And it must be. The world is a complex landscape of interactions, and great leaders can read that map and navigate it.‛

Based on his own experience, Morten’s advice to young aspiring leaders in technology is clear:

‚If you want to be a digital leader of tomorrow, you must, of course, excel at your craft and invest time, effort, energy, blood, sweat, and tears into it. Understand the business. You won’t make a career as a technologist alone; you will make a career as someone who helps the business succeed. But what truly matters are your people skills: how you engage with those around you—whether colleagues, customers, or stakeholders. That is what will make the real difference.‛

There is however not about what kind of business or any specific industry:

‚With my own varied experience—having worked in all sorts of industries—I know that the line of business does not define good leadership. Whether it is a co-op app, a blockchain-based global trade facility, or advancing surface physics to support the green energy transition, the industry itself does not determine leadership success. What matters is working with great people who are passionate about making a difference.‛

“IT is crucial for most business processes, but often not prioritized”

The CIO Transformation Board

In the Danish ICT Industry Association (IT-Branchen), we have the CIO Transformation Board, which brings together the most visionary CIOs from Denmark’s large and medium-sized companies. These are CIOs from businesses where digitalization is a strategic part of the business — but where there is also a desire to do more than just digitalize.

We aim not only to highlight Denmark’s most talented CIOs and share experiences and best practices across industries, but also to set the agenda in the media and with politicians regarding Denmark’s and the business sector’s digital future.

The CIO Transformation Board is created for those who also want to help find the new balance between people and technology. For those who have a stance and want to help influence our green transition, address the skills shortage, and strengthen growth in Denmark.

Read more about the CIO Transformation Board