Carlsberg's disappointing global ambition

Carlsberg, the Danish brewer, is looking for a new chief executive to replace Nils Smedegaard Andersen. The company has gone through a huge amount of change over the past seven- eight years, moving from being a national producer with a few international outposts to being a truly global corporation with common policies and practices. So what is the profile of the new CEO? He needs to be Danish, according to the chairman of the Carlsberg Foundation.
The reason is that Carlsberg is more integrated in Danish society than any other and any CEO needs to find his way around ministries, government and the arts, says the chairman Povl Krogsgaard-Larsen to daily business paper Børsen.
What staggering narrowness of vision! Close to 90% of Carlsberg's turnover is generated outside Denmark, how about finding someone who can manage that?
Krogsgaard-Larsen's comment raises two points about globalisation in Denmark:

• Globalisation is something that goes on 'out there'
• It implies that Danes are natural global leaders that nip out and solve the world's problems in an afternoon after doing the really complicated stuff at home.

Both of course are nonsense. While I suspect Carlsberg knows better, the Carlsberg Foundation (which owns 51% of the company) ought to be ashamed of such a comment