Global wind power giant Vestas signaled a stronger focus on digitalisation – partly as a result of lessons learned from a major cyberattack last year – and its Development business with a new operation dedicated to the former and promotion to executive management of Thomas Alsbjerg to lead on both areas.
Alsbjerg, currently senior group vice president of development, becomes executive vice president of digital solutions and development at the Danish group.
Alsbjerg will continue to lead the Vestas Development business as well as a newly created Digital Solutions operation with “a full mandate to run the end-to-end digitalisation of Vestas”.
The new unit will “improve IT efficiency, integrate digital solutions further into our customer offering, improve our employees’ digital experience and support our core processes across the value chain”.
Vestas CEO Henrik Andersen said of the changes: “A key aspect of increasing renewables’ share of the global energy system is a strong digital foundation and solutions that help ensure a resilient, efficient, and secure renewable energy system.
“Vestas already offers leading digital solutions, and we showed great resilience when we were attacked by cyber criminals last year. Looking at future needs and the lessons of the cyberattack, however, we need a full end-to-end approach and one digital operating model. We strongly believe we can improve both our customer offering, cybersecurity and efficiency by consolidating our spend across the total Vestas enterprise.”
Vestas was last year targeted by blackmailers who compromised its systems and caused months of disruption, while several other major energy sector groups have also been the subject of cyberattacks in recent months.
Alsbjerg said: “Digital solutions are key to our future energy systems and therefore also how Vestas operates. Our Development business has progressed tremendously in the last 18 months, helping us accelerate the deployment of renewables, and with the new structure where I represent two key aspects to Vestas’ continued progress, I look forward to continue scaling our Development business and lead our digital transformation.”
Nikolaj Tyge Gertz, currently senior vice president of strategy and M&A, will become chief operating officer of Vestas Development from 1 January next year, reporting to Alsbjerg.
