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Sheela Søgaard

Danish business executive

Sheela Maini Søgaard is the CEO of the architecture company Bjarke Ingels Group (also known as BIG), as well as one of BIG's 23 partners. She is credited for growing the company and making profitable after joining the company in 2008.2

From Wikipedia’s article on Sheela Søgaard (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Born Feb 9, 1976.1

About

Maini Søgaard is known for being outspoken about gender balance. She has been a keynote speaker at the AIA Conference 2018.

From Wikipedia’s article on Sheela Søgaard, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2

Companies

  • BIGChief executive officer12

Early life and education

  • Date not recordedCopenhagen Business School master's degree3 4

Career

Occupation: businessperson, architect.7

  • Date not recordedWorked at Claus Meyer5 6
  • Date not recordedChief executive officer, BIG4 5
  • Date not recordedWorked at McKinsey & Company4 5

Maini Søgaard studied at Copenhagen Business School, and then started her career by working at the multinational consumer goods corporation Procter and Gamble, the consulting firm McKinsey, and for the Danish chef and Noma co-founder Claus Meyer. In 2008, she joined BIG as the company's chief financial officer and later on became its chief executive officer.

Within the company and the industry, Maini Søgaard has been praised for improving the firm's profitability and growing the company more than tenfold. According to her, she has done so by re-thinking the traditional fee approach in architecture, hiring the right business staff, checking project timelines and budgets regularly throughout the year, and insisting on being paid by customers. She also credits the importance of culture for the company's success.

Maini Søgaard currently serves on the board of learning platform Area9 Lyceum, the advisory board of National Gallery of Denmark, as chairman of Danish wooden flooring company Dinesen and on the global law firm Kromann Reumert excellence panel.

From Wikipedia’s article on Sheela Søgaard (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Personal life

  • CitizenshipKingdom of Denmark4 8
  • ResidenceDubai6 9

Maini Søgaard was born to a Danish mother and Indian father and grew up in Saudi Arabia and Dubai. She moved to Copenhagen to study at Copenhagen Business School, and later moved to New York. She has three children with her husband, who is a stay-at-home dad.

From Wikipedia’s article on Sheela Søgaard (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Sources

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