After 38 years in the automotive sector and seven years with Tjekvik, it’s time for me to retire.
When I first met founders Christian and Ole in Copenhagen in October 2018, my first thought was, “Why didn’t I think of this?” — quickly followed by, “How big can we make it?” Christian and Ole accepted my proposal to help grow the business globally, with a brief to start in the UK and use my contacts across Europe with brands and dealer groups.
With only Ole as a full-time employee, there were many challenges. But everyone involved — full-time, part-time, and Mats, our agent in Sweden — was committed to the fundamental tenets of Tjekvik: how can we make a service advisor’s life easier, improve the customer experience, and deliver more profit for dealers?
From fewer than 50 active sites in 2018, Tjekvik has grown to well over 2,000 dealers across 30 markets, stretching from Lithuania to New Zealand. The road trips across Europe with Christian, visiting OEMs who are now among our largest supporters — and some who have yet to commit — will be long remembered. Even driving back from Munich to the UK in one go allowed me to finish a whole podcast season. Everyone we spoke to could see the potential, and our first UK customers at Halliwell Jones, Group1 and LSH saw the opportunity and signed up straight away.
While many believe COVID created opportunity, it also brought real challenges, as gaining commitment to spend became difficult for dealer groups. Despite this, we came through stronger and grew the business significantly.
Building relationships with OEMs proved hugely rewarding, although I suspect Ole will never completely forgive me for winning a project covering nine new markets that had to be rolled out in just six months. We delivered it, and today we have our strongest global OEM relationship with the BMW brand.
By adding agents in Spain, Australia and the Baltics, and investing early in sales and Customer Success in the UK, we were able to scale faster — a model we later replicated in Poland, Germany and, more recently, France.
As an international business headquartered in Denmark, we see the value of this approach every day, as we welcome new dealer groups in multiple markets and win business with global OEMs.
Our product has evolved significantly, becoming an intelligent and flexible software platform connected to dealer and brand systems, delivered through improved hardware both inside and outside dealerships, and at vehicle pick-up locations across Europe. Yet we have always retained a clear focus: delivering an exceptional customer experience, saving advisors time, and improving dealer profitability. The impact speaks for itself, with 4.7 million customer interactions and more than €18m in added-value sales delivered year to date in 2025.
Now it is time to hand over. I leave the business in safe hands with Martin Høgh, our CRO, who brings new energy and new relationships to drive Tjekvik forward, supported by strong sales and Customer Success teams across all markets, as well as our brilliant central marketing team.
My final thought is that without Christian’s vision and the foundations Ole laid, I would not have had the opportunity to work with so many dedicated, skilled and passionate people — both colleagues and customers.
To everyone I’ve worked with along the way: thank you. It has been a privilege to be part of the Tjekvik story.