Helge Sigurd Næss-Schmidt

Næss-Schmidt Advisory and Fellow CIP Foundation

Helge Sigurd Næss-Schmidt has a long track record of over 35 years of work as an applied economist. He has worked for the EU Commission, in the Economics departments of OECD, as head of division at the Danish Ministry of Finance and as partner and co-owner of Copenhagen Economics (CE), a European consultancy specialised in regulatory economics and competition. His key areas of work has been focused on the green transformation of the global energy system, the role of financial markets, macroeconomic policy and public finance.  He has considerable experience in due diligence processes notably with respect to acquisitions and investments in the energy sector, including financial evaluation methods. 

He has taught economics at Copenhagen Business School and the Faculty of Economics at Copenhagen University. 

Sigurd has broad experience as an advisor and board member. He was head of the Danish delegation to Economic Policy Committee to ECOFIN (council of EU Finance minister), chairman of EPC’s working group on Globalisation and has served as board member at a pension fund and the Danish export credit agency. For a number of years, he was member of an academic advisory group on public finance for the German ministry of finance. 

While no longer a partner at CE, he continues to work on strategic assignments as an independent consultant working with clients and partners. He has been a fellow at the CIP Foundation since 2022, a Danish think-tank focused on promoting the green transformation by developing investments strategies for low carbon technologies and solutions, including its regulatory policy aspects. 

In addition to a long record of consultancy reports for international clients such as the European Commission and Parliament, European governments, business organisations and companies., he has also published work in his own name, most recently in 2023 a booklet called Preserving the Benefits of Globalisation and the Welfare state.