Max Ekengren, CFO of T.Loop, will be presenting at Sweden Sustaintech Venture Day from the 9th to 10th October. We had the opportunity to meet Max at the world’s first Data Energy Center in Häggvik, Stockholm, where T.Loop use excess heat from the servers to heat the building the data center is located in. The Data Energy Center is one of the destinations you can visit, if you join the Stockholm Cleantech Tour on the 9th of October.

Max Ekengren left a career in corporate finance three years ago to join T.Loop, when the founding team needed someone to fully support in financial matters after they had closed the company’s seed round. Max seems extremely happy with his choice, as he has always been interested in an entrepreneurial career. When studying Business he dreamed of being part of a company’s growth journey.

”To understand the driving forces behind a successful entrepreneurship, and how to grow a company: that has been on my mind for as long as I can remember. Here at T.Loop I am paired up with a group of extremely intelligent and well-educated people” says Max Ekengren.

A growth journey means a lot of hard work, you cannot deny that. To recharge the energy, Max enjoys sports and spending time with his family. He holds an ambition to leave this planet a bit better than when he was born here. One easily can see that using all the excess heat from data centers, that normally is just cooled down which adds on even more energy use, means a lot to our energy system. The world is in great need of cheap and clean energy.

”In general people do not reflect enough over how much energy our digital world is consuming; this is a big threat to the climate” says Max. 

We have reached a tipping point. As companies are starting to use AI, the energy usage is exploding, and there will not be enough energy for this increased.

To back his argument, Max brings out numbers. Today, data centers consume 2% of the total electricity production. With the AI evolution, this predicted to increase to 20-30% of the total production in just a couple of years. Ireland has already reached this point. T.Loop’s founders; Jonas Nyman – Chairman, Staffan Stymne – CEO and Mathias Lindqvist – CTO invented the concept to circulate the energy from data centers and T.Loop’s Data Energy Centers can be a game changer to this prediction.

T.Loop build their data centers in existing buildings. The excess heat from the servers is used to heat the building, and the spare capacity in form of batteries is used to support the power grid.

”So far the plans have been defined and executed on, which of course feels very satisfying for me. At T.Loop, everybody does both the daily digging, and the strategies, and I personally thrive in being a part of that culture” Max Ekengren finishes off.

Age: 30

Education:  B.Sc. Business Administration Accounting and Finance as well as B.Sc. Strategic Communications, both from Lund University

Future Vision: To leave the world a little bit better than when I was born in it

Best book to read: Currently, Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order by Ray Dalio

Sustainable leisure tip: Not overly using cameras on Teams meetings

One sentence on Green Leadership: To me green leadership is to drive change by integrating sustainability in every aspect of the business, and thus inspiring others towards a more responsible future through conscious decisions and innovation.