Jørgen Lindegaard (born 7 October 1948) is a Danish businessman. He has held several major posts in large Danish and Scandinavian companies. Most famously, he was CEO of the

SAS Group SAS AB (Scandinavian Airlines System Aktiebolag), trading as SAS Group, is an airline holding company headquartered in the SAS Frösundavik Office Building in Solna Municipality, Sweden. It is the owner of the airlines Scandinavian Airlines and S ...

from May 2001 – late 2006.

Education and career

Jørgen Lindegaard graduated with a master's degree in civil engineering from the

Technical University of Denmark The Technical University of Denmark ( da, Danmarks Tekniske Universitet), often simply referred to as DTU, is a polytechnic university and school of engineering. It was founded in 1829 at the initiative of Hans Christian Ørsted as Denmark's fi ...

in 1975 and immediately joined Philips Telekommunikation, a subsidiary of the Dutch

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters i ...

conglomerate, where he stayed until 1977. At that time he joined Fyns Telefon, a now defunct regional unit of the Danish national

telecoms Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...

company

TDC A/S TDC Holding A/S or TDC Group (formerly Tele Danmark Communications) is a Danish telecommunications company dating back to 1879. TDC Group is the largest telecommunications company in Denmark. The company's headquarters are located in Copenhagen ...

. In 1991, after 14 years at Fyns Telefon, he joined KTAS the regional equivalent telecoms unit for

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

where he stayed for 4 years until joining

GN Store Nord GN Store Nord A/S is a Danish manufacturer of hearing aids (GN ReSound/GN Hearing) and headsets ( Jabra (GN Audio)). GN Store Nord A/S is listed on NASDAQ OMX Copenhagen (ISIN code DK0010272632). History The Great Northern Telegraph Company ...

. After more than 25 years in the telecoms industry he was headhunted to become the CEO of SAS, where he oversaw a turbulent time in the international aviation industry including

9/11 The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial ...

and the deadly crash at

Milan Linate Milan Linate Airport is the third international airport of Milan, the second-largest city and largest urban area of Italy, behind Malpensa Airport and Orio al Serio Airport. It served 9,233,475 passengers in 2018, being the fifth busiest air ...

of Scandinavian Airlines flight SK686 on 8 October 2001. At the same time, rising oil pricesBP oil prices 2001 – 2006
and several staff disputesSAS Group, Interim Report, Q3, 2006
/ref> over pay, staff cuts
/ref> and working conditions hampered his ability to institute the necessary turn-around at SAS. At the time of his departure, the company was still in severe financial difficulties.TheLocal.se, May 16, 2006
/ref> He left the company in 2006 to become the CEO of the world's largest facilities management company, and Denmark's largest global employer,

ISS A/S ISS A/S (International Service System) is a facility management services company founded in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1901. ISS's core services include: security, cleaning, technical, food and workplace. The ISS Group’s revenue amounted to DKK 69.8 ...

. At the press conference in Stockholm announcing his resignation from SAS on 16 May 2006 he publicly admitted that he was burnt out and said: "''It is possible to lose sight of the commercial side of the business when you're so highly focused on the costs, and now, somebody else has to take on the job. However, it is clear that further cost cuts are still needed, as well as commercial initiatives, at SAS''".Borsen.dk, 16 May 2006 (''in Danish'')
/ref> He is a fellow of the

Norwegian Academy of Technological Sciences The Norwegian Academy of Technological Sciences ( no, Norges Tekniske Vitenskapsakademi, NTVA) is a learned society based in Trondheim, Norway. Founded in 1955, the academy has about 500 members. It is a member of the International Council of Aca ...

References

1948 births Living people Danish chief executives SAS Group people Chief executives in the airline industry Members of the Norwegian Academy of Technological Sciences Technical University of Denmark alumni {{Denmark-business-bio-stub