From Business Economics at SDU to Divisional Director at Sydbank
Linette Damgaard Hansen is 29 years old, Divisional Director for Business Development at Sydbank and educated at SDU. She is the youngest manager in the bank’s history with such a large area of responsibility. Her road to success came through a combination of curiosity, ambition and student jobs in the business community.
By Asta Holst Bach
It was actually by chance that Linette Damgaard Hansen got her foot in the door of the financial world.
Upon graduating from SDU in Kolding back in 2017, she sent job applications to a wide range of companies. The position as Business Developer at Sydbank was just one of several options, and Linette Damgaard Hansen was in doubt about whether she was a good fit for the job when she read the advertisement. Nevertheless, she submitted an application and was invited to a job interview at the bank.
The interview went well, and Linette Damgaard Hansen’s curiosity was piqued. She was offered the job and didn’t hesitate for a second to accept. Four years later, she was made Divisional Director for Business Development at Sydbank. She is the day to day manager of nine employees and professionally responsible for almost 300.
Her first management job
29-year-old Linette Damgaard Hansen holds an MSc in International Business from SDU. She fondly remembers the University for its great learning environment with attentive lecturers.
- The lecturers showed a genuine interest in each student. Also, the study and leisure environments were really good. It has done a lot for my personal development, she says.
During her studies, Linette Damgaard Hansen had a number of student jobs at different companies. In addition, she was in charge of the student bar and tutored new students at the University. And it was as a bar manager at SDU that the future divisional director at Sydbank gained her first experiences as a manager.
- When you are a volunteer leader of other volunteers, you need them to follow your message because they see a point in it. Volunteers have strong opinions themselves and are therefore difficult to lead. Nevertheless, I really gained a lot from the experience, and I have been able to draw on in it my career, she says.
A critical mindset
For Linette Damgaard Hansen, the transition from university to a full-time job as a business developer at Sydbank required some readjustment. However, she was surprised at the similarity between the tasks she had worked on at university and those she was tasked with solving at the bank.
- In principle, the distance between a fictional case at SDU to a real problem in a company is quite short. At university, you must present the solution to a lecturer, and in a workplace you present it to your boss or a colleague. But, of course, there are many other factors at play in a business that mean you have to put in an enormous amount of effort every day.
The most important thing Linette Damgaard Hansen has taken away from her education is not necessarily the concrete theory, but rather the approach to how to best solve a problem.
- Of course, at university you learn a lot of theory, and you use it to a certain extent. Still, a pivotal thing I learned at university is a mindset.
- It’s about being curious, investigative and critical of the information at your disposal when addressing a task or being presented with a problem. It’s a good approach to take away from your studies.
Work experience is key
Linette Damgaard Hansen had only worked as a business developer at Sydbank for about a year when she was offered a career path at the bank, ‘Talent for leadership’. It gave her the opportunity to try her hand at leadership and determine if it was up her alley. It most certainly was.
One year later, before she had completed her management training, she was appointed head of the business department – in fact, she became the youngest manager with such a large area of responsibility in the bank’s history.
Today, Linette Damgaard Hansen has no doubt that the work experience she acquired through her student jobs and as a volunteer qualified her for the job at Sydbank as a recent graduate and prepared her to land a management job at a young age.
Therefore, she believes it is important to have a close collaboration between the University and the business community. That students try their hand at working for companies during their studies.
- Being able to read up on subject material and reproduce the syllabus at exams may help you get top marks. But that’s not necessarily what makes you an intelligent employee or means you’ll succeed in business, Linette Damgaard Hansen says.
And in this regard, work experience is crucial, says the young divisional director:
- Therefore, I also believe SDU’s approach is spot on by focusing on collaborating with companies and nudging students closer to the business community.
Linette Damgaard Hansen’s 3 tips for students and recent graduates
1: Find a part-time job during your studies. Aside from gaining important work experience and the opportunity to apply theories taught at the University in practice, you will become acquainted with various types of industries and tasks.
2: Ambition. It is important to be ambitious about your career and to be passionate about what you do. You should go to work because you want to make a difference for the company. People around you should be able to feel your passion.
3: Humility and curiosity. As a newly graduated academic in a workplace, you are often among those who know the least. Therefore, it is educational and important to be curious about one’s colleagues and professionalism. You’re not done learning just because you’ve earned a master’s degree.