Words by Rasmus Folehave Hansen
Photos by Adrian Westphal

Great things don't usually happen by accident. When it comes to turning around the publishing house equivalent of an oil tanker, it takes careful planning and unflinching dedication to strategy to hit the target – and integrity to stay the course, says Mette Østergaard, Chief Editor of Berlingske.

When we meet Mette Østergaard at Berlingske's headquarters in central Copenhagen, the entire building is in disarray after a water pipe on the fourth floor busted open a few days prior, leaving the floors below flooded. It must be a management nightmare, but she is welcoming and composed nonetheless.

We sit down in a conference room decorated with century-old oil portraits of Berling family members and wooden furniture with brass inlays. Glass cabinets in the hallway packed with leather-bound volumes document the rich history of Denmark's oldest newspaper. As luck has it, at least this part of Berlingske remains unscathed.

Coming from positions at Politiken and TV2, Mette Østergaard has been at the helm of Berlingske for three and a half years, overseeing a radical transformation that excised the old heart of the paper in favor of an updated platform that includes the digital content expected by today's media consumers.

In which way did adversity make you stronger?

In my first years in a leadership position I faced a lot of adversity because I was young and relatively unexperienced and came to a place with lots of experience and old ways of doing things. Staying true to my own ideas was a huge challenge. I felt a lot of pressure from my coworkers about the way things were going, and whether I was the right person for the job. 

At one time I was in a management crisis at Politiken, so I went to Anders Krab's office complaining: "I can't do this. They all dislike me. I don't know what to do." His reply was: "We can send you on a leadership course, or you can go out right now and solve this issue." It was tough love, but implicitly he said that he trusted in my ability. 

My natural stubbornness kept me on track, but it earned me plenty of bruises. It's a balancing act, really: you need to listen to others, but you also need to stay true to yourself in order to create your own company culture and direction. You may get knocked off course at times, but the important thing is to keep your eyes on the goal ahead. 

 "You need to listen to others, but you also need to stay true to yourself in order to create your own company culture and direction. You may get knocked off course at times, but the important thing is to keep your eyes on the goal ahead."

You participated in the Headlight program. How did it advance your personal transformation?

I joined Headlight a few years into my position at Berlingske. It's a very concrete way to work with leadership development, because it ties into your way of solving all types of problems, and it carries the basic philosophy that you are able to make your own changes. It's easy to blame past events for why you can't succeed now. In my world, it translates into understanding why I may find it hard to make certain decisions.

I had a conversation with Erik from Headlight. The topic at hand was integrity and how to brand Berlingske in the future. A house like this has many vested interests and many things to take into consideration. It can be advantageous to have a nose for politics, but what Erik told me about integrity is that as a leader I am paid to have an opinion, not to just go with flow.

That was something I took with me to the job. Going from objective journalist to opinionated editor means writing editorials, taking part in the public debate, and taking some heat. I accept this as part of the job, but on a personal level it has been overwhelming, because I was schooled in the tradition of not sharing my opinions through my work. It builds my strength, but it's very difficult, and getting over that hurdle has taken some courage and barrier-breaking.

"The same applies to leadership: if I don't believe what I'm saying, I can't motivate others to follow."

Did you have space issues?

No, it was a matter of making a cultural change. In terms of the company mentality it took up too much room that we needed to fill with something new. Visually and culturally we had to move it out of this building. If we hadn't understood what it took to get here, we might have settled for making small adjustments to our format.

Looking at other newspapers as our main competitors is kind of old-fashioned. Our greatest parameter for competition is time. How do we get you to spend some of your precious time on our content? Few people sit down every morning and read a newspaper end to end. We can draw them in by nurturing trust and brand loyalty, but we don't have their undivided attention in the same way we had with the printed papers.

Do you miss telling stories and meeting people?

Yes. It's interesting to see how my passion and purpose have changed during the course of my career. When I started, it was to satisfy my curiosity of people, to tell stories, and to enter unknown spaces. I'm conversing with you now because you're a journalist. That access to people's stories and inner lives is a huge privelege. That was what drove me. In my current role, this has changed. What drives me now is not to get personal accolades for a solid interview or groundbreaking news, but to create a framework for others to do so. I can't claim the final product, but I do have a hand in the decisions that made it possible. It can be a bit of a burden to carry 250 years of tradition on my shoulders, but it's also what motivates me, and that is hugely satisfying. My primary goal now is to ensure the survival of free, publicistic journalism. Berlingske has been around since 1749, and I'll be damned if I'm the one who puts it in the ground by making the wrong decisions.  

If you're looking to enhance your own leadership skills or unlock hidden potentials, bounce over to weareheadlight.com and see what we can accomplish together.

Words by Rasmus Folehave Hansen 
Photos by Adrian Westphal

Great things don't usually happen by accident. When it comes to turning around the publishing house equivalent of an oil tanker, it takes careful planning and unflinching dedication to strategy to hit the target – and integrity to stay the course, says Mette Østergaard, Chief Editor of Berlingske.

When we meet Mette Østergaard at Berlingske's headquarters in central Copenhagen, the entire building is in disarray after a water pipe on the fourth floor busted open a few days prior, leaving the floors below flooded. It must be a management nightmare, but she is welcoming and composed nonetheless.

We sit down in a conference room decorated with century-old oil portraits of Berling family members and wooden furniture with brass inlays. Glass cabinets in the hallway packed with leather-bound volumes document the rich history of Denmark's oldest newspaper. As luck has it, at least this part of Berlingske remains unscathed.

Coming from positions at Politiken and TV2, Mette Østergaard has been at the helm of Berlingske for three and a half years, overseeing a radical transformation that excised the old heart of the paper in favor of an updated platform that includes the digital content expected by today's media consumers.

First off, can you tell us about your road to Berlingske?

I was trained as a journalist, and I never had the goal of being an editor. Like many other journalists, I got into the profession to meet people and tell stories. Early on, it became apparent that I have a talent for leadership and pointing a direction for the journalism we produce now, and for the stories that will pay our bills in the long run.

The greatest challenge in coming to Berlingske has been to take this old newspaper and brand, which has been around since 1749, and transform it to fit a new digital reality where news is mostly consumed online. It's a journey that has taught me a lot. I have grown from it on a personal level, and so has the entire Berlingske brand.

What kinds of changes has the newspaper gone trough on your watch?

We have had to significantly scale down the part that many considered to be the heart of the business, which is our printed newspaper. Currently, only a handful are occupied with producing the print version, whereas the rest are engaged with creating journalistic content for the digital realm. Of course this has been a tough transformation, and a great leadership challenge in terms of sticking to the overarching goal and the strategy we need to follow. So it's not all fun; I have to contend with people refusing to greet me in the hallways, or seeing people at meetings getting really angry with our decisions. I fully understand their frustrations, but part of my job is to communicate what our main goal is: for this newspaper to survive. But adversity is a great teacher; if you simply glide through life with no resistance, it can be difficult to notice things you might improve.

“Of course, this has been a tough transformation and a great leadership challenge in terms of sticking to the overarching goal and the strategy we need to follow.”

In which way did adversity make you stronger?

In my first years in a leadership position I faced a lot of adversity because I was young and relatively unexperienced and came to a place with lots of experience and old ways of doing things. Staying true to my own ideas was a huge challenge. I felt a lot of pressure from my coworkers about the way things were going, and whether I was the right person for the job.

At one time I was in a management crisis at Politiken, so I went to Anders Krab's office complaining: "I can't do this. They all dislike me. I don't know what to do." His reply was: "We can send you on a leadership course, or you can go out right now and solve this issue." It was tough love, but implicitly he said that he trusted in my ability.

My natural stubbornness kept me on track, but it earned me plenty of bruises. It's a balancing act, really: you need to listen to others, but you also need to stay true to yourself in order to create your own company culture and direction. You may get knocked off course at times, but the important thing is to keep your eyes on the goal ahead.

 "You need to listen to others, but you also need to stay true to yourself in order to create your own company culture and direction. You may get knocked off course at times, but the important thing is to keep your eyes on the goal ahead."

You participated in the Headlight program. How did it advance your personal transformation?

I joined Headlight a few years into my position at Berlingske. It's a very concrete way to work with leadership development, because it ties into your way of solving all types of problems, and it carries the basic philosophy that you are able to make your own changes. It's easy to blame past events for why you can't succeed now. In my world, it translates into understanding why I may find it hard to make certain decisions.

I had a conversation with Erik from Headlight. The topic at hand was integrity and how to brand Berlingske in the future. A house like this has many vested interests and many things to take into consideration. It can be advantageous to have a nose for politics, but what Erik told me about integrity is that as a leader I am paid to have an opinion, not to just go with flow.

That was something I took with me to the job. Going from objective journalist to opinionated editor means writing editorials, taking part in the public debate, and taking some heat. I accept this as part of the job, but on a personal level it has been overwhelming, because I was schooled in the tradition of not sharing my opinions through my work. It builds my strength, but it's very difficult, and getting over that hurdle has taken some courage and barrier-breaking.

"The same applies to leadership: if I don't believe what I'm saying, I can't motivate others to follow."

How would you describe your method? Bird's eye view, take it as it comes, or something in between?

The short answer is: I can't see the entire process, but I do have a clear view of the target. The thing about making strategies in a rapidly changing environment is that five-year plans seldom work at a 1:1 scale. What we do is set general goals, and then we regressively analyze the steps needed to get there: if we want to be at a cetain point three years from now, what can we do now to make it happen? The risk of only looking at a faraway goal is that you end up taking steps toward it that are too small – making tiny adjustments instead of the big changes you really need.

Once your aim is set on a goal, some parts of the plan are already fixed, because they relate to fundamental structures and organizational principles, for instance: we realized that to truly change Berlingske, we had to physically remove the print paper production from our headquarters.

If you're looking to enhance your own leadership skills or unlock hidden potentials, bounce over to weareheadlight.com and see what we can accomplish together.