About

The Odense Tramway is a construction company with the sole purpose of building the tramway in Odense, therefore the company did not initially invest in a legal department, until about a year and a half ago when Jesper Rasmussen was appointed project director for Area & Rights. With a background as a lawyer at Bech-Brunn, Rasmussen is responsible for securing the legal foundation for the company and currently heads a team of 10 members, four of which are legal and six of which are non-legal advisors. In his role as senior management Rasmussen is, in addition, tasked with managing and directing the project’s advisors and communicating with other project directors, encompassing between 60 and 90 advisors. Despite the recent adaptation of a legal department, under the leadership of Rasmussen, the company has been successful in drafting the Construction Act for Odense in the Danish Parliament and negotiating with the Expropriation Commission with very few changes to the project, a commendable achievement since the project entails building a railway through a city centre. One of Rasmussen’s most challenging tasks as been to manage the 250 properties that are affected by expropriation, with ‘owners ranging from top-professional companies with large legal departments to private owners who have no knowledge about expropriation as such. This requires strong communication skills, and at the same time in debt knowledge about the legal framework’. His strong communication skills dealing with an array of stakeholders and his ability to grow his knowledge of not only legal aspects but other sectors involved in the project is praiseworthy, sources compliment that ‘Jesper has in-depth legal insight and a special talent for strategy and communication. Jesper is assertive and a good manager of people as well as projects’. When asked what he enjoys most about his role at Odense, Rasmussen states that ‘being part of the senior management team allows me to be closer involved in the strategic and day-to-day decisions in the company. Another major plus for me is to be able to lead a high-performing team and setting direction for this work’.