Steffen Damborg spent twelve years as a C-level director at the Danish media group JP/Politikens Hus, chairing and moderating sessions as the industry navigated wave after wave of new technology. When smartphones reshaped media consumption in the late 2000s, he co-organised and moderated a first-mover conference on the shift, an early formative experience in leading dialogue around disruptive change.
Around a decade ago, he left corporate life to moderate and deliver keynotes for a living, first within media and later across all industries. Today his work centres on new technology trends, currently dominated by AI, and he approaches every session with the discipline of a former professional athlete: preparation, training, and delivering his best performance each time.
How did you start your journey to becoming a moderator?
Steffen reflects on the years of in-house events that shaped his craft long before he turned professional.
“I cannot really recall the very first event I moderated, but I was a C-level manager in the Danish media industry for many years at a large media group called JP/Politikens Hus. We hosted a lot of events ourselves, so I was chairing and moderating sessions while working there as a director. I did that for twelve years. Then, around ten years ago, I left the group and started to do moderation for a living, alongside keynotes about digital transformation, first within the media industry and later across all industries.
That is my profession today: moderating and speaking on new technology trends. Right now it is obviously AI that is all over the place, but we have seen a lot of new technologies over the last ten or fifteen years.”
What is your first notable memory of moderating a session?
Steffen recalls co-organising an event as the smartphone upended how audiences consumed media.
“When smartphones arrived, around 2007 or 2008, everybody needed to pivot towards this new technology that everyone could have in their pocket. It was a new way of consuming media. Before that, you needed the printed edition, or you went onto the World Wide Web to look up news brands. Then everything changed, and consumer habits changed with it. We ran a conference on that, inviting other first movers within our industry to share experiences on how to approach the technology, and I moderated it. That was special for me, and it was the first time I was co-organising an event primarily about a new technology that turned things upside down.”
What has changed the most about moderating today?
Steffen points to the emergence of entirely new event formats as the biggest shift in his time facilitating.
“One thing is that you use a lot of new formats. For instance, at the Ortus event, I was moderating while the C-level executives were having a Michelin-star dinner. You would not have seen that ten years ago: this format where you invite high-level people into that kind of setting, with Michelin staff serving courses while you discuss what generative AI can do for your business and share experiences on scaling, piloting, and making sure the technology creates value. It was a whole new experience for me, but it went very well. Everybody was pleased, the food was fantastic, and there were good discussions during the dinner. It is a whole different way of doing events.”
Where do you think event formats will go in the next five years?
Steffen describes a future where events are combined with sought-after experiences to attract the right people.
“You are competing for people’s time, and you want the right decision-makers, the C-level, in the room. So it is really about creating an event where people feel they want to go. People care about who else will be there; that is the most important thing. It is like a virtuous circle: you need to create the right event to attract the right people, and if the right people come, everybody else will join. I think that is what we will see in the future, putting these events in Michelin restaurants, or adjacent to Formula One racing, or alongside big events that are hard to get tickets for. You combine things that attract the people you want, so they are no longer just saying yes because they were invited to a small conference.”
What makes a discussion good beyond the topic?
Steffen explains why trust and frankness matter more than the subject on the agenda.
“The Chatham House Rule is a good format: you can use what is said outside the room, but you cannot attribute it to the people who said it. If everybody has trust in the setting and the people in the room, they can be frank, and that is the most important thing. You do not want everybody telling you about something successful they have experienced.
You want to hear the pain points, the struggles within your organisation, and what it took to get closer to your goals. The goal itself is not that interesting; it is the journey and the problems you experienced along the way. That gives thoughtful thinking around the table, especially when leaders are frank about the difficulties of pivoting big companies as new technology waves arrive.”
What tips would you give aspiring moderators?
Steffen is candid that competence in the role is earned through repetition and handling the unexpected.
“The more I think about it, you really need to train it. Nobody is a born moderator. When I think back on the first gigs I did as a professional, I ask myself whether it was even fair that I charged for my attendance, because you really need to train to have the right appearance and to make discussions flow naturally while keeping things on track. It is often very difficult, so you need to have tried it a number of times to cope with the unexpected, and there is always something unexpected. At the Ortus event, the food was being served, waiters were coming in, and the chef was explaining what was on the plates. Switching from the food back to the core topic and back again was really difficult. It takes routine, and you never really know how a discussion will go, which is what makes it exciting every time.”
What has moderating taught you about senior leaders?
Steffen offers a grounded observation about the executives he facilitates.
“I am not sure how surprised I am, but they are just regular human beings, like everybody else when they sit down to talk. Of course, people at this level are typically very bright; they have access to data and insights the average person does not, and the problems they spend time solving are often very complicated. But they are just humans. They are approachable, easy to talk to, interested in making things work, and polite.
In fact, the C-level today knows less about their operating model than they did ten or twenty years ago, because so many new technologies have been introduced. It is impossible to understand every corner of the business when so much is coded into platforms, software, robots, and AI. So you need to manage companies differently than you did historically.”
How do you see enterprise management changing in the future?
Steffen links technological complexity to a structural shift in how decisions are made.
“I think you will see flatter structures within big organisations, where you decentralise competence and decision-making power to the people closest to the task. You do not have the information or the knowledge to make those decisions at the C-level, so you really need to build trust. That is also what you see in the cultural attributes of the big tech companies.
Where they do better than classic legacy companies, for instance in the S&P 500, they are more decentralised and more ready to push decision-making power outward than classic companies are. There are also governance issues with generative AI, so it is not easy. We talk about empowerment throughout the organisation, but at the same time we talk about hallucinations and other issues we need to solve to build a future-proof, strong organisation.”
How has moderating contributed to your own growth?
Steffen describes the insights he gains as the foundation of his wider practice.
“I get insights from a lot of people who sit at the very top of their organisations, and that is very important for me. It is what I build on when I do my own keynotes. I talk to a lot of C-level people working with cutting-edge technologies, trying to do things at scale in new ways. This is so important that I could not run my own business doing what I do without those talks. Without that information and those insights, I would not bring the same value to the table when I show up. That said, as a moderator, if the discussion is going well, I will never post questions myself, because it is about facilitating the discussion among peers. The less people hear me, the better the discussion was.”
What still makes you nervous before an event?
Steffen frames pre-event nerves as a familiar, productive tension carried over from his sporting past.
“I am always nervous, but nervous in a positive way. I am excited. I do not take anything for granted, so I prepare in the best way I can, because it is important to me to deliver a successful performance every time. In the old days I did professional sports, and it is the same: you do the training and the preparation to contribute the best version of yourself every time. I am nervous before we begin, but not more than I can still deliver a good performance, and I believe nobody would be able to tell that I am also considering how it will go. I played handball, which is a big sport in most parts of the world and the second largest in Denmark after soccer.”
What would change about how you moderate in five years?
Steffen suggests the setting may grow more complex even as the fundamentals hold.
“I am not entirely sure I can answer that, but hopefully another five years of experience will bring me to an even better place. Still, I think the moderator role has not developed that much. You are doing a good job if the discussion flows well, and that will still be the purpose in five years. Maybe it will be against a backdrop of noisy Formula One racing cars, or big rock stars playing during sound rehearsals next door. I am sure the setting will be more complicated in the future, but the role will stay the same.”
What is one question you will never stop asking?
Steffen closes on his enduring interest in the process behind an accomplishment rather than the headline result.
“The question is really about how did you do it. Often people tell you they managed a certain return on investment, or raised digital subscription revenues by a certain percentage, but I am more interested in the process leading up to it. How did you actually do it, and what were the impediments and problems you faced during the journey? I always try to get under the surface of things and understand the difficulties behind great accomplishments, because without that perspective nobody else can learn from your experience. If you do not really know what went on underneath the polished statements, no one can learn from them.”
Join the Conversation: The Ortus Club’s Executive Network
Across Steffen’s insights on trained moderation, the invisible facilitator, and the power of frank peer dialogue, one pattern is clear: the most valuable conversations aren’t about performed success. They require a safe, high-trust setting where senior leaders can share the journey, the struggles, and the process rather than the headline result.
His vision of the moderator who stays invisible reflects a broader reality: today’s leaders cannot learn from polished statements alone. The most effective executives, especially those navigating constant technological change and flatter organisational structures, actively seek out peer dialogue as a strategic necessity to understand how things were actually done.
At The Ortus Club, we host curated executive roundtables that bring together senior leaders facing these exact challenges. Step away from the polished narrative and engage in the kind of open, high-value conversations that reveal the process behind real accomplishment.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Is moderation a natural talent or a trained skill?
A: According to Steffen Damborg, nobody is born a moderator. The right appearance, natural conversational flow, and the ability to keep a discussion on track are developed through repeated practice and experience handling the unexpected.
Q: Why does a good moderator stay quiet?
A: The moderator’s job is to facilitate discussion among peers, not to present knowledge. When the conversation flows well, the moderator intervenes less, using prepared questions only to keep dialogue within scope or to revive a stalling discussion.
Q: What is the Chatham House Rule?
A: It is a convention that allows participants to use the information shared in a discussion but forbids revealing the identity or affiliation of whoever said it. This anonymity encourages leaders to speak frankly about struggles and pain points.
Q: Why are executive event formats changing?
A: Organisers are competing for the time of senior decision-makers. Combining events with sought-after experiences, such as Michelin-star dinners or major cultural and sporting occasions, helps attract the right people into the room.
Q: Why are organisations moving towards flatter structures?
A: As technology grows more complex, C-level leaders can no longer understand every corner of the business. Decentralising competence and decision-making power to those closest to each task, supported by trust, becomes essential.
