Five years has passed since Stine joined Dyalog Ltd, and in only a few weeks she will also celebrate a year and a half as our CEO. When asked about her first five years, Stine said “Time passes very quickly when you’re having fun, so for me, this anniversary has come far sooner than I was expecting! Taking over this role from Gitte meant not rocking the boat too much – if it’s not broken, there is no reason to fix it. I do make changes though – I try to use my fresh perspective to identify places where we can improve. These changes must be made while still staying true to the Dyalog culture and making people feel safe, both within Dyalog Ltd and in our user community. I try to make small incremental changes, and give people plenty of opportunities to contribute and complain along the way.”
The most important skills for a person in Stine’s position are patience and empathy. Change can be difficult, even if it’s for the better – this is especially true at Dyalog Ltd, where Stine’s favourite part of our culture is the passion. “Every employee is passionate about the company and our product. Dyalog Ltd is not just a workplace, it is a family…a lifestyle. I try to guard that passion so that it never burns out, while feeding it new firewood in the form of good working conditions, influence on the product, and a collaborate leadership style.”
Stine works from our office in Copenhagen. It is here that her favourite ducks are – they are part of a flock of 400 mini ducks that Martina placed around the office as an April Fools joke!
When asked about her most significant project in her time at Dyalog Ltd, Stine replied “Since I became CEO, things stopped being about me. My main task is to make sure that everyone else has the chance to shine, so I have nothing that I have done on my own”. If she must identify her proudest achievement so far, it is getting everyone to arrive on time for meetings (sometimes even five minutes early!).
Even though Stine grew up with APL being the language of choice at home, she never really learnt it (despite trying multiple times), mostly because her interest lies more with people and processes. Helping people grow and making their lives easier makes Stine happy, so even though she is still being teased about her lack of APL skills(!), we can understand that she prioritises other things.
Stine is working on making Dyalog Ltd future proof. She aims to ensure that knowledge and skills are shared from the more experienced employees to the newcomers, so we can continue to operate and support our users for many years to come. We have many key people in the older generation of employees, and the challenge of externalising years of accumulated knowledge and experience is one that Stine has been happy to take on. Some of us have been with Dyalog Ltd for as long as Stine has been alive, and no single individual joining us today can possibly assume their roles without extensive mentoring and knowledge transfer. For Stine, playing role matchmaker and facilitator is both exiting and very rewarding. She plans to serve Dyalog Ltd for many years, continuing to focus on improving and simplifying our work lives, so that we can deliver a good product that remains in touch with the latest technological developments.
Outside work, Stine enjoys dancing and reading books, as well as taking care of her proudest achievement: her children. Long-standing members of the community might remember a Dyalog user meeting in Elsinore where she led a Zumba class every afternoon for the whole week; Stine still does Zumba twice a week, and it is one of the things that helps her to stay sane and in shape.
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It came as a surprise to Andrea (but not to anybody else) that she wanted to work as an executive assistant. She should have anticipated it; she did write her master’s thesis in rhetoric on how to lay the foundation for a great partnership between the rhetorical adviser and the director that needs assistance!
However, Andrea knew that working from the outside wasn’t what she desired. She wanted to be part of the organisation that she was helping, getting to know its members, its strategy, and its challenges and strength in depth. She also wanted to work closely with one or two members of management so that she could refine her ability to anticipate their needs and really be of assistance. This was a discussion that she often had with Stine, whenever the two of them and their partners met up to drink port and catch up. After two years of listening to this, Stine asked her if she wanted to try working with her and Dyalog Ltd. Andrea was sceptical at first as programming had never caught her interest, but her three-week internship passed very quickly. For a person interested in communication, behavioural design, and people, Dyalog Ltd was a wonderful source of learning and development. Advising on communication, helping with administration, and partaking in leadership discussions gave Andrea a new sense of fulfilment; here she got to stay and actually do the work instead of always leaving for the next client. After her internship she submitted a formal application and soon found herself thrown headfirst into a whole new world of programming and APL. Besides tackling administration and communicational tasks, Andrea is also trying to increase the number of memes being circulated in Dyalog Ltd!