TRUE WEALTH

Saxo Bank chief executive KIM FOURNAIS reflects on a meaningful life.

- JENNIFER CHEN

Self-sufficiency and purpose bubble strong in Kim Fournais. The chief executive of Saxo Bank made his mark as a pioneer of fintech, having set up an online trading platform in 1998, six years after he founded the company at the age of 26 with 70,000 euros in capital. Today, he heads a global firm with over 2,500 employees across major cities managing over US$100 billion (S$1.3 billion) in client assets. AIong the way, he learned how to pilot a turbo prop plane because he loves the freedom it affords as well as the efficiency of zipping his people around Europe.

The 57-year-old Dane is in Singapore on his bi-annual visit to the company's first office outside of Denmark. Sitting down with Prestige, he shares that he has been conducting a sustainable living experiment for the past two decades. "In 2005, I bought a small, 155ha island in Denmark and made it self-sustaining. There are wind turbines, solar cells, battery storage, regenerative farming. It's to show that sustainability can happen, that you can have wonderful nature, wonderful home-grown food and live a healthy and beautiful life in balance with nature," he says. The island is not financially sustainable yet - that's the trial part of the project - but he believes it's a model for what can be achieved, to rebalance the environment and create jobs.