Astrid Søes Poulsen has been the director of FÆNGSLET in Horsens for nearly seven years. Earlier in her career, she held various communication roles, including Head of Communications at the law firm chain Advodan and Head of Branding and Marketing at FÆNGSLET. Her journey from a communications role to the director’s chair has involved participation in several leadership courses over the years. However, she felt it was time to pursue even more learning.

“I am fortunate to work in a place where the board supports my development as a director and leader. Not long ago, the chairman of the board asked me, ‘What’s your next development project?’ This question prompted me to seek out an executive program that could build on my previous leadership education. I considered an MBA but felt it might be too comprehensive. When I learned about the more intensive Executive Management Programme at INSEAD, it seemed particularly appealing. Firstly, the program wasting connected to the renowned business school INSEAD, and secondly, it was structured around the three pillars of leadership, strategy, and innovation, which made perfect sense to me from an academic perspective,” says Astrid Søes Poulsen.

She describes the educational program as highly satisfactory, both in terms of the academic content, the instructors, and the other participants.

“I was enthusiastic from day one. The academic level was high, the participants were extremely sharp, and the instructors—both the business leaders in module 1 and the INSEAD professors across all three modules—were impressive. It was a pleasure and a great strength to meet so many talented people with responsibilities comparable to my own, and I am very satisfied with what I gained from the experience,” says the director, continuing:

“To elaborate, it’s simply about having renewed and expanded my insights into the three categories that were promised: strategy, innovation, and leadership. Overall, I have gained a more substantial approach to strategic work and learned how to ensure a forward-looking and proactive focus for my organization, which ties closely with innovation efforts, for which I have also acquired structured tools. You need to have a clear vision of where your company needs to go to survive. Strategy and innovation are, of course, incredibly important, but they are worth nothing if, as a leader, you can’t bring your employees and company culture along on the journey. In this regard, the lessons and training in leadership have been particularly valuable.

FÆNGSLET as a Case Study
The new perspectives and skills will be highly useful in the future, points out Astrid Søes Poulsen, who notably used her company as the subject for the project collaboration that is part of the executive program and takes place between modules 2 and 3 at INSEAD. “It was a privilege for me that we worked with FÆNGSLET in our project case. I owe a great deal of thanks to the other participants in the project group, who worked hard, spent time with me, and provided me with qualified feedback and support in the strategic work we’ve begun, which is set to be implemented this fall. I have taken home something very concrete that I can apply in this ongoing work,” she says, before concluding:

“What’s also powerful is that we as participants have developed a shared language that we can use in our future work. We were a really good team that managed to collaborate across different areas, and it was fun to get to know each other and each other’s businesses. I sincerely hope that we manage to stay connected in the network going forward—I have no doubt that we will benefit greatly from sharing our know-how with each other in the future.”