At Novo Holdings, value-creating digitalisation is mostly about people

At Novo Holdings, digitalisation is a question of listening, translating and building trust. Meet their Head of Digital, Thore Dankert, who creates the connection between code and C-level – and insists on technology as a tool to strengthen judgement, support the business and spot future investment opportunities. 

When Thore Dankert started working in tech, he and his like-minded colleagues were often regarded as some out-of-touch types who sat in the basement.

"We ate our pizza, drank our cola and came out every six months to present something we thought was cool. And then the business' response was typically along the lines of them not having asked for it at all, and that they couldn't use it for anything whatsoever."

Much has changed today. Also for the man with the distinctive moustache, which in all its bushy glory conceals an enthusiastic, almost boyish smile when he talks about his work. He has long since climbed out of the basement, and today he directs the digital agenda as Head of Digital for Novo Holdings, which manages the wealth of one of the world's largest financial reserves, the Novo Nordisk Foundation.

It's a job that involves both many cups of coffee and a glimpse into the future. We'll return to the coffee, but as for the future, it manifests itself in the technology applications across the many different potential investment opportunities that Novo Holdings must assess on a daily basis.

Overall, Novo Holdings has two investment verticals: One is Capital Investments, which is the company's division for financial investments, including real assets, bonds & cash, credit etc. The other track is called Life Science Investments and covers everything from early seed investments in young biotech companies to the largest corporate transaction in Danish history. That took place in 2024, when the American company Catalent, which is best described as a contract manufacturer of pharmaceutical products, was acquired by Novo Holdings for the substantial sum of approximately 115 billion kroner.

"In other words, we span broadly and are presented with a wealth of different opportunities. Therefore, we also work purposefully to use technology to support and improve our investment decisions. And because the subject matter we work with is often very complex, we believe strongly in the principle of human in the loop. Technology shouldn't replace our employees, but rather help them make better decisions. It's about combining human judgement with technological tools so we can elevate the quality of our decisions even further," explains Thore Dankert.

It places at least as great demands on his communication skills as his technical ones. If not greater. And this is where the coffee comes into the picture.

For Thore Dankert and his team, there's an enormous amount of change management work involved in getting the organisation to see the opportunities in new technology and getting individual teams and employees to understand how they can use it in their daily work. Therefore, they spend a great deal of time talking to people in the business and understanding what their challenges are.

"It's really important to me that our digital transformation is pain point-driven and not just me and my team thinking it's cool technology. That's where I spend a very large part of my time in the office drinking coffee with people and figuring out how we can help them use technology to shine," says Thore Dankert.

He believes that technological and digital transformation is 10% about technology and 90% about people. This is because technologies today are so mature that the hardest part is actually getting people to change their mindsets and behaviour patterns, Thore Dankert explains, before his brain suddenly jumps back more than 100 years in time.

"Henry Ford said that if he had asked people what they wanted back then, they would have said a faster horse. People's imagination didn't stretch to saying they needed a car. And from society's perspective, they were considering how to optimise the sewers with all the extra horse manure that would end up in the streets."

Now, it's not exactly as if the world needs more new cars, so what's the equivalent of Henry Ford's thinking today?

Thore Dankert leans back in his chair, whilst his thoughts lean into the future.

"People fundamentally think very linearly, and basically we haven't yet gained insight into how much we can actually do with technology, because we use technology to do exactly the same thing tomorrow as we did yesterday," he says, before making the notion more concrete.

“Many of us, for example, spend a great deal of time sitting in meetings, but is that even value-creating in the long run? That's where I really want to look at how we use technology to become even sharper and smarter, because otherwise we'll just get even more of the same – and yes, even more meetings." 

Looking at Novo Holdings' tech investments within life sciences, you'll find that they're very varied and span broadly from analytics and business intelligence to automation, data governance, AI and much more. And with the insight into new technologies that Thore Dankert has through his job, it would be natural to assume he was tempted to be quick to implement new digital solutions himself. But in fact, it's an integrated part of the organisation's digital strategy not to be a frontrunner.

"Digitally, we're a fast follower instead of being a first mover. That means we're very happy to learn from the mistakes that have been made elsewhere. We take those in and assess how we can improve and adapt them so they fit in and create value in a Novo Holdings context," says Thore Dankert.

He's presented with a great many new technologies and products – almost every day, in fact – and therefore he's become sharper and perhaps also more critical when it comes to assessing the concrete potential for value creation in a new technology.

"Where I perhaps previously had some FOMO (fear of missing out, ed.) regarding new technologies, I feel the opposite now. Because things move so quickly, I'm more afraid that we'll end up working with a technology that's been disrupted within a very short time, and we simply can't use it any longer because it's become irrelevant, just as we also shouldn't throw large sums at something that will be standard technology in a moment."

As an example, he mentions the currently omnipresent AI agents, which naturally have also been on the radar for Thore Dankert and his team for a long time. But instead of jumping on the train and headlong starting to integrate them throughout the organisation, Thore Dankert's approach was that a foundation for value creation had to be established first, before they would begin working concretely with the agents at the earliest in Q2 2026.

Right now, generative AI features heavily at Novo Holdings, where the value creation can especially be found in running through all the many different potential investment opportunities to spot the good opportunities and potentials. In addition, it's also an integral part of the digital strategy that Novo Holdings doesn't digitally close itself off. Thore Dankert and his team make a great effort to engage with and collaborate with both external consultants, including Basico, and their peers in the investment industry.

"We really need the inspiration we get from outside. Especially because our portfolio companies are as technologically broad and diverse as they are, so to be able to support them all, we have to know what's going on in the industry around us," he says.

When we don't have a Henry Ford to predict the future for us right now, and when there's typically big money at stake when it comes to implementing new technology, it can be difficult to know what exactly the money is being spent on and what value it brings with it.

Here lies an inherent danger that the digital strategy ends up as a gimmick that doesn't bring value creation or concrete changes at all. This is what's called innovation theatre in the industry, and it's on that theatre stage, where it's all a big performance, that Thore Dankert least wants to find himself.

"That was something I particularly saw a lot of a few years ago. Everyone had to have an AI department or an innovation department. Then they could say they were working on it, and that way they could satisfy a board that was asking for something without actually being interested in changing anything. That's my greatest fear – ending up there," he emphasises.

The key to not ending up in the theatre, according to Thore Dankert, is that there's support, backing and genuine interest in digital transformation from C-levels, who can be your ambassadors to a board, where ideally there should be risk appetite and courage to take some chances.

"It requires courage from a board – courage to listen when I say that this is going to create major changes. Even though we don't know exactly what it's going to look like yet. And then it also requires that management keeps backing us once we get started. That they show trust that the tech team has control of the direction – even if they perhaps don't understand all the details. If they start micromanaging something they don't really have the prerequisites to manage instead, then it goes wrong."

And it's precisely here – in the tension between tech team and boardroom – that Thore Dankert's role is most important. He describes himself as a kind of link who needs to be able to operate at a high level on strategic, tactical and operational levels.

"I have some incredibly skilled specialists, and I'm nowhere near their level.. It's clear that I can't, for example, code Python like I could in the old days. So it's not on the purely technical side that I can give them something. But in return, they can see that they can use me to get their things through if I help them ensure their projects are presented in the right way to the board. That's fundamentally what I can do: I can speak both developer language and C-level language and get C-level to understand what we can actually do with all that new technology, whilst also getting the developers to understand where the value creation for the company is."

Thore Dankert's greatest ambition for his work is that Novo Holdings is known as a solid fast follower in the use of technology in the investment industry. They don't necessarily need to be first with everything, but they need to be quick to adopt new technology and use it wisely.

And on a more human level, it's that his colleagues feel confident using new technology and have a high level of digital imagination. Colleagues who have their eyes and ears open to what's happening in the tech world, and who actively consider how they can use new tools in their daily work, and who also feel comfortable coming to him to present – or question – a technology.

"Something like automation can be perceived by many as something that's coming to take their jobs. If we automate a manual process, what will they do tomorrow, they might think. But that's not at all the mindset or drive that exists at Novo Holdings. Here it's more about how we can continuously improve," he says and thinks further about his answer.

"And then I would like us to become good at using technologies to find investment opportunities that we wouldn't otherwise have found. But I can't quantify exactly how much better investment decisions we're going to make based on a new technology. If I could – with all due respect – then perhaps I wouldn't be sitting here either," he says and reveals a big grin behind the moustache.

Fundamentally, the ambition for Thore Dankert and his team of digital specialists is that it becomes even clearer what value they can help create for Novo Holdings.

"If I ask my colleagues out in the organisation in a year's time what they would say characterises the digital team, I'd like them to say that we're a trusted adviser, and that we're value-creating in relation to their daily work. I want to get to a point where we're a natural part of their workflow in much the same way as a Legal department. Most teams in here can't run their due diligence without Legal. That's the reputation I'd like my department to have in the long run.”