Dan Olofsson

Early life and education

Dan Olofsson was born in Ekenäs in Finland. His father was employed as pastor of Karis from 1948 to 1951. His parents and family are rooted in Jämtland in northern Sweden. When Olofsson was one year old his family moved to Malmö in southern Sweden, where he was brought up and still lives.

Olofsson attended upper secondary technical school at Pauliskolan in Malmö and graduated as Master of Science in Engineering at Lunds Tekniska Högskola in 1974.

Career

After his education, Olofsson began a carrier in the technology consulting industry. He started at VBB (what is now Sweco) and then proceeded to Skandiaconsult.

In 1986 Sapia was established, and Dan Olofssons was assigned the task of building its technical consultancy part, which he then acquired in 1993. The company was renamed Sigma, and an IPO took place in 1997. In 2001, each of Sigma's three business areas became separate companies and went public as Sigma, Epsilon and Teleca.

Since the start in 1986, Sigma, Epsilon and Teleca has grown from zero to approximately 9,000 employees in an entrepreneurial development with subsidiaries in over ten countries. Through a concept called entrepreneurial packages some 25 companies with currently more than 3,000 employees have been established.

Today, Dan Olofsson is conducting his business through the family-owned company Danir AB, where his son Johan Glennmo is CEO. Via a public offer in 2013, Danir acquired the entire Sigma group. Sigma has since developed very well and grown organically with approximately 600 employees per year. Currently it has 3,300 employees. Danir also has a number of other investments in different countries.

In the autumn of 2012, Dan Olofsson’s autobiography "Mina tre liv" ("My three lives") was published by the publishing house Ekerlids Förlag. The book has received particular attention for its claim that the Swedish government should have committed a financial miscarriage of justice at financier Maths O Sundqvist.

In recent years, Dan Olofsson has actively participated in the public debate on issues relating to business conditions and entrepreneurship.

Commitment in Africa and in Malmö

After having devoted himself to his great hunting interest in Africa, he and his wife Christin Olofsson in the early 2000s decided to develop the safari facility Thanda Safari with more than 14,000 hectares of land in KwaZulu-Natal in eastern South Africa. Every year 2009–2016 this safari facility has been named "The World’s Leading Luxury Lodge" by the World Travel Awards. In 2016, the marine reserve Thanda Island opened in Tanzania.

Dan Olofssons’s philanthropic commitment is best seen through the organization Star for Life, which he and his wife Christin launched in 2005. So far, 250,000 young people has participated in a three-year preventive programme against hiv/aids in South Africa, Namibia, and Sri Lanka. Star for Life recently was established also in Sweden, to strengthen young people's self-esteem and belief in the future.

Dan Olofsson is also the founder of the Thanda Foundation, working with projects in KwaZulu-Natal and in Nelson Mandela's birthplace Mvezo in Eastern Cape Province in South Africa.

In the spring of 2011, Dan Olofsson initiated the funding of "Uppstart Malmö", a trust aimed at creating more job opportunities in the under-privileged areas of his hometown Malmö. The concept behind the trust is to offer advice, support and financial help to local entrepreneurs who want to develop their business ideas and create more jobs, and to help young people enter the labor market. Altogether 2,000 people have found work through this initiative.

Awards

Dan Olofsson has received several plaudits for his work. These include being voted South Swedish county of Skåne's Greatest Entrepreneur in 2001, Malmö Ambassador of the Year 2004, the Pegasus Prize in 2008, the Community Philanthropy Award at Global Business Coalition in New York in 2008, Entrepreneurial Model of the Year 2011 by Founders Alliance and H.M. The King's Medal 12th size for important contributions to Swedish business and filantrophic commitment in 2011. In 2012 Dan Olofsson was awarded The Royal Patriotic Society Business Medal for outstanding entrepreneurship, Also in 2012 he received the magazine Veckans Affärer’s Social Capitalist Award. It’s given to role models who through business try to solve problems in society. In 2015, Dan Olofsson was honoured with the Swedish Region Skåne's award for exceptional efforts for the development of Skåne. In October 2015, he was also awarded an honorary doctorate by the Faculty of Technology and Society at Malmö University in Malmö, Sweden, for contributing to resolve societal problems through the use of information and communication technology. Furthermore, in November, the University of FASTA in Argentine awarded Dan Olofsson an honorary doctorate, for his citizenship and philanthropic efforts in Africa and Sweden. He was also awarded The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise' (Swedish: Svenskt Näringsliv) Nicolin Prize for 2015 for his contributions to the public debate for a better understanding of the importance of enterprises.