Getting to know Persefoni: Meet Jacob Madsen

1. And you may ask yourself, "Well... how did I get here?" (Tell us your journey?)

I grew up in Skanderborg, Denmark. It’s a small town by a big lake, with beautiful forests and rolling hills. I was always outdoors either fishing with my friends, mushroom foraging with my family or collecting rocks, especially Stoneage axe heads and other relics. The latter made we want to become a geologist, but in my last year of high school, the Berlin wall came down and a whole new world opened in Eastern Europe with all its opportunities and challenges. Namely, including environmental degradation from years of pollution produced from heavy industry. After 2 years in the Danish army, I went to university studying Environmental Engineering. As part of that, I spent a semester in Cape Town working in a large fish industry helping with reducing their water consumption. That’s where I learned about sustainability in supply chains. Shifting to a broader holistic view of sustainability brought me to working on life cycle assessment (LCA) and product carbon footprinting, and I have spent the last 20+ years helping some of the largest global companies and governments reduce their carbon footprints.

2. And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile. (What do you do at Persefoni?)

I am part of Persefoni’s Climate Solutions team and I help our customers build carbon management and accounting solutions that align with their current business needs and longer term strategy. My role goes beyond supporting customers using our industry leading platform to measure and manage their carbon footprint. Wherever they are on the carbon management journey, I help them make informed decisions about (and responses to) increasing external pressures due to investor and consumer demands, and legislation such as mandatory disclosure, carbon pricing and other risks to the bottom line.

3. And you may ask yourself, "Where does that highway go to?" (What are your hopes for your time at Persefoni?

To change our impact on the environment, we need to better understand it so we can transition into a low carbon and resource efficient economy. I hope to help make Persefoni play a leading part in this transition. I hope to continue providing investors, companies and other stakeholders data they can trust from a provider who can transparently demonstrate the measures taken to ensure data quality and show and explain how data were processed. I hope we will continue being the leading provider of climate data for consistent and comparative (mandatory) disclosures that are decisively useful for investors and help companies manage their climate related risks and opportunities

4. And you may say to yourself, "My God! What have I done?" (Why is Persefoni a great home for you?)

Persefoni is making a real impact in combatting climate change which is undoubtedly one of the greatest global threats of this generation. Every day, I get to work with the smartest, most passionate and innovative people in the climate tech industry and a leadership team who are laser focused on sustainability, flexibility, authenticity, transparency and diversity…..while building the best tool in the industry to measure and manage greenhouse gas emissions…so if you want your work to be impactful, Persefoni is second to none!

5. And you may find yourself in another part of the world... (Tell us about your life/hobbies away from work?)

Outside of work I love to spend time with my family, friends and my 3 year old Shepherd mix, Ruby. I love sports especially soccer and last year I started coaching….but I also love the Bears although it’s been tough recently. Living in Chicago, which is a top 3 food city in the US, we also love going out for dinner/drinks/wine. I love boxing and I used to go 4 times a week (but the pandemic put a halt to it for some time) and all I can say is that Mike Tyson was right when he said “Everybody has a plan until you get punched in the mouth”.