About

Lars Henie is known as an ‘excellent’ lawyer who also holds the position of head of tax in the Norwegian multinational group Statkraft, a leading company in hydropower internationally and Europe’s largest generator of renewable energy. The group produces hydropower, wind power, gas-fired power and district heating and is a global player in energy market operations. During his career Henie has developed very good knowledge of international tax law and has developed that by using a hands-on, practical approach. Henie boasts extensive experience from previous positions as well as an advocate specialising in tax. He served as a tax lawyer for Ernst & Young for ten years and was recruited as vice president and head of group tax for the Norwegian multinational REC in 2009 where he stayed until the end of 2013. Starting his current position at Statkraft in 2014, he has since enhanced the attention given to tax risk management and planning within the Group, and has also successfully started a transformation of the tax function to make sure it is proactively involved in transactions, furthermore securing a diligent tax risk management and providing career opportunities for employees. Henie is also a technical expert with a good and practical grasp of domestic and international tax issues. Henie has always had the aim to centralise and streamline the tax function with clear roles and responsibilities: ‘both in my previous and current role, I have been working a lot to define the cooperation model between the tax department and the business areas with clear roles and responsibilities. In my view, these are very important factors in order to successfully address tax issues from an in-house perspective’. Henie explains that to overcome challenges in regards to legislation and tax complexity he has adapted a uniform approach to tax work, with frequent interactions with corporate management and the audit committee, ‘dedicated employees in the tax department are key factors for success to overcome these challenges’.