About Us

Not your usual team

A Global Collective of Executives, Entrepreneurs and Experts

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The Problem

The reality

Most startups never become real businesses, and only a rare few ever reach an exit. The result? An enormous waste of founder talent, investor capital, and potential impact on the world. Even the strongest founders are unlikely to do it alone.

Building and scaling breakthrough technology requires access to people who’ve done it before - leaders with the scars, networks, and pattern recognition to accelerate the journey. Yet most startups can’t tap into that experience.

They turn to mentors, advisors, advisory boards and boards - with good intent but poor outcomes. These models are broken: they lack matching competence to the real need, shared goals, aligned incentives, processes, systems and execution. Basically everything you need to drive professional outcomes.

The Solution

We’re changing that

OPERATORS is building the world’s most powerful collective of Executives, Experts, and Entrepreneurs - working with top founders who are solving big industrial B2B challenges and turning them into real, scalable businesses.

Mission & Values

We Give Founders Access To People They Normally Can’t Reach: Experienced Operators, Board Members And Aligned Investors To Combine Competence, Structure, And Accountability.
This Way Technology Companies Move Faster, Make Better Decisions, And Scale With Clarity.

Our Values

  • We’re here to build real businesses - not just busy ones.

    Real business and real people in long-term relationships.

    Value creation should be tangible - and visible to everyone involved.

    We build fast. We build to last.

  • We bet on trust, not tactics.

    The startup world is full of shortcuts. We’re not.

    Like ROI, trust compounds over time.

    Transparency isn’t optional - it’s how trust stays real.

  • Tech startups, execs, experts, employees, entrepreneurs - we build and win together.

    Together we can create what none of us can do alone.

    We act with empathy, because we’re building with people, not just technology.

    Care is a strength.

  • We don’t guess - we gather.

    We make decisions from research, not gut feel.

    We listen more than we talk. We ask why before we answer how.

    Depth is our foundation. Speed is the result.

  • This is not a spectator sport.

    We show up. We write the draft, push the deal, join the call.

    We don’t hide behind roles - we step up wherever the work is.

    Execution is the difference.

The Team

Meet the team behind OPERATORS

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    Nicklas V. Fursund

    Founder & CEO

    Serial entrepreneur with 25+ years of experience in maritime, energy, and supply chain.

    Started with a corporate career leading business units, then moved to the strategy office, global fuel reduction, and MD of Regional Operations in MAERSK.

    Built startups, made mistakes, learned, and grew into helping others succeed.

    Partner at RAINMAKING, where we invested in 950+ startups and helped them scale. Co-founded Motion Ventures, a VC fund backed by industrials.

    Worked with 50+ industry corporations on innovation. Former advisor to BCG, McKinsey, and Kearney.

    Educated at Wharton, IMD, CBS, and INSEAD, with three board certificates - most recently in board leadership from DTU (Technical University).

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  • A man with a beard and tousled hair wearing a light blue button-up shirt, standing in front of a wooden and textured wall background.

    Rasmus Borgstrøm

    Partner of OceanTech

    Innovation leader and startup growth advisor working across ocean, climate, and frontier technology.

    Built and led ventures, shaped corporate innovation, and supported founders in achieving funding, product validation, and commercial traction. Learned as much from setbacks as from the wins, shaping a hands-on and grounded approach to advising founders.

    Former CEO of a satellite-powered geospatial scaleup and VP of DHI’s Innovation Lab. Holds DTU’s startup board education and maintains strong ties across the blue investor and innovation landscape.

    Committed to accelerating technologies that deliver measurable climate and ocean impact.

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  • A man wearing glasses and a light shirt stands with arms crossed, smiling slightly, against a plain light background.

    David Lusztig

    Venture Partner

    Commercial–technical operator with 15+ years across SaaS, PaaS, maritime tech, fintech, and enterprise software in regulated digital markets.

    Started in high-performance commercial environments across EMEA and APAC, progressing from media buyer to leading revenue, GTM, and product–commercial functions in fast-scaling SaaS/PaaS organizations.

    Built, funded, and exited multiple ventures, gaining end-to-end founder experience and applying those lessons to help startups achieve traction, validation, and scalable sales systems.

    Served as Executive Director of Diize BV, a corporate spinoff backed by Wilhelmsen Port Services AS and Royal Vopak NV, leading commercial strategy, GTM redesign, product–market alignment, investor engagement, and fundraising in maritime software.

    Works with founders, commercial teams, and corporate stakeholders to design GTM, pricing, revenue architecture, and enterprise sales engines across complex and regulated industries.

    Educated in Business (IUPUI, USA), Law (University of Miskolc, Hungary), and Full-Stack Web Development, with negotiation training from Harvard Business School.

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  • Portrait of a young man with short brown hair, wearing a white dress shirt and navy blazer, against a gray background.

    Vasily Ryabov

    Partnership & Research Associate

    Vasily works at the intersection of SaaS, maritime innovation, and international development.

    He spent three years working and travelling across West Africa on innovation and sustainable development projects, and later helped deliver European-led initiatives focused on practical implementation rather than policy slides. That field experience still shapes how he thinks about constraints, incentives, and what it actually takes to make change stick.

    He has worked in both technical and humanitarian organisations – from Microsoft to the Danish Refugee Council – giving him a broad, grounded view of how governments, corporates, NGOs, and startups each approach risk, funding, and decision-making. That mix allows him to “translate” between very different stakeholders in complex projects.

    Today, he combines this perspective with his research at Denmark’s Technical University on how advisory boards actually work in practice. The gathered insights allow him to build solutions that make structured support measurable, comparable, and genuinely useful for founders who want to understand how to win.

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Powered By Modern AI

Gaia, Our Human-led OPERATORS AI Helps With Speed and Ease

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Gaia assists in everything from matching founder needs to the right Operators, meetings and founder capability analysis. It helps everyone move fast and effectively.

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Operating Globally

OPERATORS Collective

Global presence - each dot represents cities where one or more Operators are present.

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The OPERATORS

Meet some of the OPERATORS

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    Martin Dommerby Kristiansen

    Digital growth executive and former GateHouse Maritime CEO, now serving on 8+ boards helping tech and maritime companies scale through digital strategy and global expansion

  • A young woman with curly blonde hair wearing a light blue shirt, smiling against a plain light gray background.

    Deanna MacDonald

    Founding Partner at Aveera Energy, global board member of IBIA and co-founder of Bloc and BunkerTrace, with 10+ years navigating sustainable marine fuels, climate impact and digital traceability in Europe and Southeast Asia.

  • A young man in a suit and tie smiling at the camera, with a blurred office background.

    Carsten Haagensen

    President of Data Services at Ocean Infinity, former Maersk Supply Service CCO, with 15+ years leading commercial growth and turnarounds across maritime, offshore, and SaaS sectors

  • A man with light brown hair, beard, and mustache wearing a dark suit with a white shirt, standing against a plain, light-colored background.

    Henrik Uth

    CEO of Survey Association and former Maersk executive, driving innovation and digital transformation across global shipping and renewables

  • A man with glasses, a beard, and short brown hair smiling, wearing a dark suit jacket and light blue shirt, standing outdoors next to a stone column with large stone columns in the background.

    Simon White

    Deputy CEO of Soya Group and former CDO at Wallenius Wilhelmsen, driving global transformation and innovation at the intersection of shipping, strategy, and next-gen technology

  • Professional portrait of a middle-aged man with glasses, wearing a navy blue suit, white shirt, and pink tie, smiling against a plain light background.

    Kai-Marcus Peschl

    Strategy leader and former Roland Berger principal with 15+ years in M&A, transformation, and AI-driven strategy across shipping, logistics, and aviation

  • A smiling woman with blonde hair, glasses, wearing a pink blouse and a gold necklace, against a light background.

    Hanne Breddam

    Tech entrepreneur, investor, and board leader with 30+ years in data, AI, and digital transformation. Former Bain & QVARTZ partner and founder of BusinessMinds, driving sustainable innovation across industries and startups.

  • Portrait of a middle-aged man with glasses, gray hair, and a beard, smiling and standing with arms crossed in front of a wooden background.

    Adam Murray Nielsen

    Founder of AMN Venture and former DS NORDEN executive with 20+ years in global shipping, now investing in and advising startups driving green and commercial innovation

Contact

Questions? Get in Touch

Reach out directly via email:
Gaia@operatorscollective.io

Come visit us:
Hojbro Plads 10, 1200, Copenhagen, Denmark

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