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DANIR 2023 | Christin & Dan Olofsson

Taking social responsibility as a company or business, projects today. And that makes me happy, says Dan
however, has not always been self-evident. When the about the new generation’s drive.
young Olofssons began their professional careers,
social work was managed solely by the society. THE BEST INVESTMENT, ALL CATEGORIES
When Dan and Christin started a hotel and safari pro-
“You worked a job, paid taxes, and society would ject in South Africa in 2004, they heard about how
take care of everything,” says Dan about social many of their employees were falling ill and dying
responsibility in Sweden in the 1970s. of AIDS. And when they visited their employees’
villages, they were shocked by the number of orphans
“ You have much more respect for there. An entire generation of parents was gone.
people who help others without They had fallen victim to the AIDS epidemic that was
having a selfish reason.” raging in KwaZulu-Natal.

– Dan Olofsson “You can’t just go home and forget about it – we
had witnessed it and we wanted to help,” says Chris-
When Dan started Danir in 1986, he once said that tin about how they felt when they saw the impact
he wanted to see if they could build a consulting that HIV and AIDS were having on the villages.
company that focused on the employees as much as
on customers and profitability. When he started his
entrepreneurship, this was far from common, even
at consulting firms. He had a novel philosophy in this
regard: if you want motivated and committed employ-
ees, you must be responsive and take care of them.

“If you don’t create an environment in which
these talented employees can develop, they will go
to someone else; so it also involves self-preserva-
tion,” says Dan about the importance of creating a
culture where you deliver high quality to customers
while taking good care of the people in the organisa-
tion. As the conversation continues and we discuss
the responsibilities a company has towards the world
beyond its own operations, it becomes clear that
young people today have a different picture of how
their employer should act in these matters.

“When I started working, these issues didn’t
exist,” says Dan. “But for young people today, it’s
very important that companies get involved in
issues other than just the bottom line of the income
statement. They want to live in a better society, and
they place new demands on their employers to get
involved and take social responsibility.”

“Young people are a driving force for non-profit