Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen

Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen (born June 1, 1972) is a business man and entrepreneur who has pioneered breakthrough products and innovative business models to improve the lives of people living in developing countries and victims following natural disasters. Vestergaard Frandsen is CEO and owner of Vestergaard, a global health enterprise dedicated to improving the health of vulnerable people. He has structured Vestergaard according to a humanitarian entrepreneurship business model. Following this model, the company devotes its innovative platform to producing products and solutions for disadvantaged people. This approach supports achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

There are three companies that operate under the Vestergaard umbrella. These include the Public Health company which houses PermaNet long-lasting insecticidal bed nets that prevent malaria and other vector-borne diseases, the Water company which manages the portfolio of LifeStraw water filters and purifiers to prevent diarrheal disease, and the Food Security company which produces ZeroFly products that protect livestock and post-harvest crops from flies and insects that harm them.

For his contributions to humanitarian efforts, Vestergaard Frandsen was honored with the Social and Economic Innovation Award by The Economist, elected to the “Women Deliver 100” list of the most influential people contributing to the health of women and girls around the world, and made an elder by the Luhya tribe of western Kenya, a rare and important honor for foreigners who have touched the lives of Kenyans in an extraordinary manner. Vestergaard Frandsen lives in Lausanne, Switzerland where Vestergaard is headquartered.

Early life

Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen was born 1972 in Kolding, Denmark. After finishing high school, he went backpacking across India and Africa. He settled in Nigeria for a while, selling used cars from Europe, a business which quickly expanded to include used buses and truck engines.

A military coup in Nigeria forced Vestergaard Frandsen to leave the country. He returned to Denmark in 1993 when he was 20. But his experience in Nigeria ignited a passion for Africa and opened his eyes to the humanitarian challenges facing its countries.

Building a Humanitarian Enterprise

Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen was given an opportunity to pursue his African interest through the family company, which at the time was manufacturing work uniforms. In 1993, he started a division of Vestergaard supplying blankets, tents and plastic sheeting through the United Nations and aid organizations to refugee camps in Africa and the Middle East.

In 1997 Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen bought this subsidiary from the family to run it independent from the uniform business, focusing solely on innovation of products dedicated to improving the health of vulnerable people, especially those who live in developing countries.

At that time, Vestergaard Frandsen transformed the company from a sales organization into a research driven company that added value to its textiles. R&D focused first on vector control with the introduction of ZeroFly insecticidal traps that kill tsetse flies which transmit the often deadly sleeping sickness disease. This technology led to the launch of the PermaNet bed net in 2004, one of the first long-lasting insecticidal bed nets to keep malaria-carrying mosquitoes that bite mostly at night away from people.

On a parallel path, during the late 1990s, the Carter Center asked Vestergaard to use its expertise in textiles to create a filter that could remove Guinea worm larvae from water it contaminated. Vestergaard partnered with the Center to develop the LifeStraw Guinea Worm filter and has since supplied over 37 million filters, contributing to the near eradication of a disease that afflicted 3.5 million people in 1986.^[1]

Witnessing the impact of the filter, Vestergaard Frandsen committed R&D to produce a water filter that could remove all microbiological contaminants to make water safe to drink. The result was LifeStraw water filters and purifiers. When introduced in 2005, LifeStraw was named “One of Ten Things that Will Change the Way we Live” by Forbes magazine.

Today, Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen’s company, Vestergaard, provides products to improve the lives of people in 65 countries around the world. The company continues to introduce new humanitarian products and devotes considerable resources to support the market with initiatives that increase speed of delivery, test innovative financing models and further scientific knowledge.

Humanitarian Impact

Under Vestergaard Frandsen’s leadership, the company has demonstrated the power of business to drive humanitarian accomplishments.

- Long-lasting insecticidal bed nets (LLINs) have largely been credited with the reduction of malaria deaths by 68% in Africa.^[2] Vestergaard is the largest manufacturer of LLINs and today over 1.3 billion people have benefited from its PermaNet bed nets. PermaNet 2.0 was the first insecticidal bed net to be brought to scale. By doing so, bed nets became affordable and a viable market for them was created. PermaNet 3.0, introduced in 2007, is the only LLIN with a product claim approved by WHO for increased efficacy against insecticide resistant mosquitoes.^[3]

- Vestergaard has produced and partly donated 37 million LifeStraw Guinea Worm filters to the Carter Center’s Guinea Worm Eradication Programme, contributing to the near eradication of a disease which afflicted 3.5 million people in 1986 and had only 22 cases reported in 2015. Guinea worm disease is on track to become the second human disease, after smallpox, to be eradicated, and the first one to be eliminated without the use of a vaccine.^[4]

- Vestergaard piloted an integrated prevention campaign called CarePack, which bundles health tools given away for free as an incentive for mass government HIV testing. The company partnered with the Kenyan government on the campaign which reached nearly 41,000 people in the village of Kakamega (80.27% of the target population) in seven days and exceeded universal access targets for HIV testing. To ensure that people who tested positive for HIV received ongoing treatment, Vestergaard subsequently financed the creation and staffing of the Emusanda Health Center in Kakamega.^[5]

- For the past 20 years, Vestergaard has been developing and promoting long-lasting vector control tools that enhance food security by protecting livestock from nuisance and biting flies including tsetse flies, which transmit sleeping sickness. In a field test in Kenya, use of ZeroFly was credited for a 25% increase in milk yields.^[6]

- LifeStraw high-volume water purifiers are the backbone of the ongoing LifeStraw Follow the Liters initiative. This program overcomes the challenge of limited funds available for safe water solutions by using a portion of LifeStraw consumer sales to support purchase of the purifiers for school children in developing countries. To date, this humanitarian program has brought sustainable access to safe water to 369,000 school aged children in Kenya and India.^[7]

External Leadership Roles

Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen’s past and present advisory positions include:

UN Women Nordic Advisory Board

Advisor to the Prime Minister of Denmark

World Economic Forum Young Global Leader

Board of Directors, Roll Back Malaria Partnership

Board of Directors, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) United States

Board of Directors, International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease

Member, NASA/USAID LAUNCH Council

Advisory Board Member, Merck for Mothers

Awards and Accolades

The Economist Social and Economic Innovation Award

“Women Deliver 100” list of the most influential people contributing to the health of women and girls around the world LINK

Danish Hero celebrated at gala in Copenhagen

Success magazine’s 9 Visionaries Shaping the Future

Product Awards and Accolades

Time: Best Invention of the Year

Saatchi & Saatchi: Award for World Changing Ideas

Reader’s Digest: Europe’s Best Invention

Good Design Award: Social Innovation

Esquire: Innovation of the Year

Well-Tech Innovation Technology Award

Forbes: One of the Ten Things that Will Change the Way We Live

ISPO: 2 x Gold Winner

GizMag: Invention of the Century

Index: Design to Improve Life Award

References

External links

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