About

My mission is to help leaders create organizations where we would love for our kids to work

I’m realizing this mission by:

01Developing Agile and Teal leadership skills on all levels of the organization
02Helping design and develop team-based orgs. focusing on creating the highest possible customer value
03Supporting management in creating environments where teams can become autonomous
04Facilitating workshops and training in New Ways of Working, Agile, and Teal Leadership
05Studying the latest trends and signal in leadership and org. development and sharing my findings
06Sharing my experiences with leadership development in writing and as a public speaker

MY EXPERIENCEHighlights from 21+ years of experience with New Ways of Working, including starting 2 companies and coaching 7 transformations based to Agile, Teal and Self-leadership principles.

2022

Construction

Merging two global organizations

Support two global organizations in the construction industry merge into one by creating a new unified culture with local nuances based on Teal Leadership and New Ways of Working.

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September 2022

Celebrating 10 years as an independent consultant

In 2012 I started as an independent consultant and co-founder of Ugilic ApS. Since then I have been involved in 7 transformations and coached numerous teams and leaders in New Ways of Working.

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2021

Life Science

Self-leading organization

Supporting an organization in getting completely rid of traditional management structures and transforming into circles of self-leading teams based on Teal values and Holocrazy operating principles.

Certification

ValueMatch Certified Practitioner

Trained and certified in applying Spiral Dynamics Integral in working with organizational culture, change processes, group coaching, and personal coaching through the use of ValueMatch online questionnaires and profiling instruments.

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Labor Union

Agile Governance

Worked with the leadership team to introduce a new Agile governance structure to support their existing Agile teams. Developed a Master Backlog and a rhythm for evaluating and prioritizing new initiatives across the organization.

Entrepreneurship

Starting Good Morning April

After 7 years as founder and leader at Ugilic, I started a new consultancy company (Good Morning April) together with 2 former colleagues and 2 new people. 

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2020

Certification

Spiral Dynamics fundamentals level 1 certification

Completed the ValueMatch level 1 training and certification in Spiral Dynamics – the research behind Teal (described by Frederic Laloux in his seminal book Re-inventing organizations).

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2019

Certification

Professional Scrum Trainer

Became a Certified Professional Scrum Trainer and started helping leaders adopt the Agile mindset by facilitating Scrum.org Professional Agile Leadership – Essentials training.

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Insurance

NWoW Coaching

Supported an Insurance company in adopting New Ways of Working in their digital development department. Trained and coached both leaders and teams and introduced Big Room planning to large parts of the organization.

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2018

Insurance

Agile Transformation

Working closely with the Management Team to establish Agile teams and introduce Agile governance structures and support functions throughout the organization. Trained all leaders in the organization in Agile Leadership as part of making the organization truly support the Agile mindset.

Education

Master of Management Development (MMD)

Master Thesis Title:
How the introduction of Agile can create new effects through collaboration between leaders, employees, and consultants.

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2016

Financial IT Services Industry

Agile Transformation

As part of a strategic initiative to further enable economic growth, I was brought on as an Agile Transformation Coach. The transformation started in IT and Product Development but quickly expanded to large parts of the organization. The organization was later sold partly on its level of digitization of customer services. 

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2015

Certification

Certified Leadership Circle Profile (TM) Practitioner

Working closely with the Management Team to establish Agile teams and introduce Agile governance structures and support functions throughout the organization. Trained all leaders in the organization in Agile Leadership as part of making the organization truly support the Agile mindset.

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Finance

Agile Transformation

Working closely with the CIO on transforming the IT organization from traditional Project Management to Agile Ways of Working. Highlights were large programs of up to 35 people organized in teams of teams and leadership training across the organization, including HR and business units.

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2012

Payroll Systems

Using Agile to turnaround a company

I was brought in as an Agile Transformation Coach to help a struggling company turn around its business and make it profitable again. The company had just hired a new CEO and CIO and they saw Agile as a key part of completing their mission. I worked closely with the leadership team introducing team-based work practices, new governance, and leadership structures. After a year the leadership team had successfully turned the company around, due to a large number of successful initiatives, and I stayed on as Transformation Coach for an additional two years.

Consultancy

Became an independent consultant

Started 21Leadership and began helping others embrace Agile, Teal Leadership and New Ways of Working.

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2005

IT Services

Senior Manger

As Senior Manager responsible for the Project Delivery organization, I had 3 managers and a total of 80+ consultants in my span of care. They were experts in Architecture, Software Development, Business Consulting, and Project Management. During my time at the organization, we completely transformed from traditional project management to new Agile ways of working.

IT Services

Head of Project Management

Responsible for daily coaching and management of 10 professional Project Managers and for developing the Agile project management tools and practices. Participating in delivery management strategic and operational activities as part of the delivery management team. Tested my theories in practice, by working in Project Management on larger complex projects for key clients, including some of the largest and most innovative international companies in Denmark.

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1999

Telecom

First taste of Agile

On September 1st 1999 Kent Beck published his groundbreaking book on Agile development called “eXtreme Programming explained” At the time I was part of a Java development team at TDC, the former Danish national telecommunications company.  We quickly got our hands on the book and pioneered Agile at a time when traditional Project Management was the norm. We had almost no idea what we were doing, but we experimented a lot and had great fun along the way. Two years later, in 2001, the Agile Manifesto for Software Development was published and other teams also started to experiment with Agile. In 2003 I attended one of the first Agile conferences in New Orleans, USA. By then I had been promoted to Program Manager with 12 people in my span of care and Agile Ways of Working had become the new norm for how we worked. 

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TESTIMONIALSSaid by people who worked with me

Max Sejbæk

“Martin is a natural leader with huge drive and engagement in everything he does (professionally and privately). Martin has a high level of empathy and understands the role of leadership and how to be part of a leadership team, where he raises the bar in relation to culture, engagement, performance, and in helping people across the organization to unfold their full potential.

Martin is authentic and trustworthy and people naturally follow his lead. He does not need to be the center of attention but has no problem getting up on the soapbox when it’s needed.”

Max Sejbæk (Regional Director)
Fellowmind

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“Martin’s leadership skills are well above what you can expect from your everyday manager. His skills as a catalyst in an organization make him an asset to any organization ready to introduce New Ways of Working.

Martin provides a solid foundation for people to excel and grow on their respective learning curves. He believes in a one-size-fits-one approach both at an individual, team, and organizational level.

Martin’s energy and general outlook on life are inspiring and highly contagious. When asked for an opinion or advice, Martin will always give a straight answer, even when the answer is uncomfortable to hear. I always respected and valued that! Martin has my highest recommendations.”

Claus Nielsen (CTO)
Sekoia

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“I worked with Martin for almost five years. I watched him closely leading our company to New Ways of Working. Martin made it so easy for us that we adopted the values, principles, and practices without even thinking about it.

When it comes to leadership, Martin respects each person’s abilities and knows how to coach them. Martin also has an excellent feel for when it is the right time to make a change that will improve team performance and challenge the individual to grow.

Martin was always my go-to person when things got hot. He is a very friendly and energetic team player with an ability to create psychological safety and purpose for the people around him.”

Abdel-Rahman Awad (Senior Solutions Architect)
Amazon Web Services (AWS)

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