The Danish–Australian Executive Dialogue was held at Denmark House in Melbourne on 16 March, coinciding with the opening day of Denmark’s state visit program. The event was co-created by Small and Mighty Group and Nord South Partners, together with the Danish Australian Chamber of Commerce and Culture. The purpose was to bring Nordic and Australian organisations together to explore real pathways for collaboration, market entry and delivery.
The Dialogue brought together businesses from a broad cross-selection of industries and geographies. It was designed to extend the conversation beyond a single sector focus and to include organisations that are often well positioned to act on emerging opportunities, but are not always visible in formal trade programs.
Jason Collins, CEO of the European Australian Business Council, spoke to geopolitical fragmentation and supply chain vulnerability, highlighting that the right response is not to retreat from openness, but to redesign it by diversifying toward trusted, like-minded partners.
Presentations by Torben Soelvsteen (Co-CEO, Nord South Partners) focused on what cross-border engagement requires in practice. This includes foundational trust, local market understanding, awareness of the structural gaps that stall market entry, and what it takes to position an expansion strategy for long-term success rather than short-term presence. Similarly, Mathias Grüttner (Managing Director, Napica) presented significant and key cultural differences that impact how audiences respond to new market participants.
Below is a summary of the key themes that emerged, with a focus on what organisations tend to underestimate and what materially improves the likelihood of successful Australia–Nordic collaboration.
Why the timing matters
A consistent observation is that future growth cannot be solved using an insular, country-by-country approach. Climate change, supply chain risk and technology transfer increasingly demands global thinking. This is pushing organisations to reconsider where they build partnerships, where they invest, and how they reduce exposure to single-market risk.
From a commercial perspective, the Australia–Nordic corridor has been estimated to represent a $30billion* opportunity in green energy and sustainable infrastructure alone, before additional sectors such as life sciences, advanced manufacturing, defence, digital services and agrifood are considered.
What each side offers
What Australia offers Northern Europe
The Danish–Australian Executive Dialogue event highlighted several reasons Australia is an attractive market and partner for Nordic businesses. These include a large, stable and growing economy, ambitious renewable energy targets, and an industry landscape that can be less constrained by heavy regulation and tradition. Australia is also a market of 27.6 million people and rising.
What the Nordic countries offer Australia
Northern Europe offers world-leading green technologies and products that can help Australian organisations close sustainability gaps and meet government targets faster. In many sectors, the regulatory environment is already where Australia is heading. For Australian organisations looking beyond the domestic market, Northern Europe also provides access to a larger B2B market and a strong base for international scale.
The gap that still needs closing
Across conversations held with numerous different businesses, one theme kept returning. Many organisations have strong IP and genuine ambition. What they often lack is a safe, structured and scalable pathway into the other market.
A particularly common challenge is the distance between strong IP and commercial readiness. Australia has world-class research institutions and strong pipelines across biotech, cleantech, medtech and advanced manufacturing. The constraint is rarely capability. More often, it is the transition from R&D mode to commercialisation mode, which is frequently under-resourced and under-timed.
This is a key reason Nord South Partners was created as a subsidiary of Small and Mighty Group. It was built to provide flexible, structured support so organisations can understand a new market, navigate cultural and commercial differences, and avoid being locked into rigid, one-size packages.
Market entry realities organisations underestimate
Australia is not one market
A major point made in Torben Soelvsteen’s address was that Australia often behaves like several markets that share a currency. State differences can shape regulatory expectations, procurement processes, industry priorities and relationship networks. A contract in one state does not automatically translate to credibility in another.
The reverse is also true. A footprint in Denmark does not automatically translate across Norway or Sweden. Cross-border growth requires a local-global approach, supported by the right partner on the ground.
Trust is local
Even when organisations are aligned in their values and communication is open, deals are often won on local trust. People tend to do business with people they know, or people recommended by someone they trust. Having the right local voice behind you is often the difference between progress and a door that stays closed.
What good looks like in practice
Cross-border growth succeeds when organisations treat entry as a staged delivery program, not a single decision. Practical examples discussed at the Dialogue included structured market analysis, prioritising the right entry points, building warm introductions through trusted networks, and supporting delivery once traction begins.
Different industries and different directions still require the same fundamentals: clarity, local insight, and delivery capability that adapts as reality changes.
If your organisation would like to understand what cross-border growth could mean in practice, a useful first step is a structured conversation about where you are now, what you are trying to achieve, and what must be true for entry to succeed.
How Nord South Partners and Small and Mighty Group support organisations
Small and Mighty Group supports organisations to align strategy, leadership and execution, especially during growth, change and complexity. Nord South Partners complements this by focusing on cross-border commercialisation and implementation between Northern Europe and Australia, helping organisations move from intent to structured entry and in-market delivery.If you are exploring opportunities across the Australia–Nordic corridor, connect with our team. We will discuss your current position, clarify the most practical pathway forward, and help you build a staged plan to execute with confidence.
*This figure represents green energy and sustainable infrastructure opportunity and is speculative modelling based on government targets, investment flows, and trade data, accessed via publicly available data and information. Current as at March 2026
