Peter Evensen feels at home on the bridge and is a force to be reckoned with in the boardroom but members of the executive’s inner circle say he is also an avid skier who feels most at ease on the slopes, including those near his offices in Vancouver and Stamford.
While delegates arriving on day two of the show are cursing the blizzard that blanketed the better part of the Northeast Monday night and Tuesday morning, some of Evensen’s closest colleagues say the winter wonderland is the perfect backdrop for the coronation of the CMA’s commodore.
TradeWinds caught up with the former Wall Street banker just hours before the storm splattered the region with snow in an effort to learn more about an individual who is held in high regard by friends, colleagues, foes and competitors on land and at sea.
Evensen lives in Southport, a quaint town in an upscale region of Connecticut known collectively as Fairfield County, and is a seasoned squash player in addition to what one confidante described as a skier whose skills are “on a par with some semi-professionals”.
The married father of two was born in Washington, DC, where his Norwegian dad worked as an economist for the International Monetary Fund and continues to hold season tickets to the Washington Redskins, a leading American football franchise.
“My father restructured countries while I restructured companies,” the CMA honouree joked during the chat at his Stamford office, which is also the home of Gemini Tankers, before switching gears to discuss a title awarded to C Sean Day, Teekay’s long-time chairman, in 2005.
“This is really an award for all of Teekay, we are a team,” Evensen continued. “It really reflects our overall success and resolve throughout the crisis and serves as a testament to our status as a leader in all four verticals in which we have been expanding, particularly in offshore and LNG.”
When Evensen took the reins from Bjorn Moller in 2011 he says he followed in his predecessor’s footsteps and completed the reorganisation of Teekay’s leadership structure in an effort to evenly distribute power while eliminating top-down decision making, a model he called “dated”.
“We gave more power to people in the field so that not everything had to be run by me or senior leadership,” he added when asked about the human element of success. “We really aren’t hierarchical, which is important because many of the best ideas come from the ground floor, not necessarily from me. Our team is really our greatest success and what I am most proud of.”
