UL Solutions CEO: Evolving Safety Testing, AI, and Consumer Protection
In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen
Norges Bank Investment Management
4.8 • 186 Ratings
🗓️ 19 March 2025
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How do we ensure the products we use every day are truly safe? In this episode, Nicolai Tangen talks with Jennifer Scanlon, President and CEO of UL Solutions, about the evolving world of safety testing. From toys to lithium batteries, they explore how UL Solutions puts products to the test, the role of AI in shaping safety standards, and the company’s journey from private to public ownership. Jennifer also shares her leadership philosophy and her deep commitment to building a safer world. With 15,000 employees operating in 110 markets, UL Solutions is making a global impact. Tune in for an insightful conversation!
In Good Company is hosted by Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management. New full episodes every Wednesday, and don't miss our Highlight episodes every Friday.
The production team for this episode includes Isabelle Karlsson and PLAN-B's Niklas Figenschau Johansen, Sebastian Langvik-Hansen and Pål Huuse. Background research was conducted by Isabelle Karlsson.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi everybody, I'm Nicola Tangen and the CEO of the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund. |
| 0:05.0 | And today I'm in properly good company with Jennifer Scanlan, President and CEO of the remarkable UL Solutions. |
| 0:11.0 | Now, UL solutions specialize in safety testing across a wide range of areas from household appliances, |
| 0:18.0 | industrial equipment, building materials, medical devices, |
| 0:22.9 | lots of interesting things we're going to talk about. |
| 0:26.9 | And we own 1.6% of the company, equivalent to $160 million. |
| 0:29.4 | Jennifer, huge pleasure to have you on today. |
| 0:31.6 | Oh, it's such a pleasure to be here, Nikolai. |
| 0:35.1 | We're thrilled to be part of your portfolio as a newly public company. |
| 0:36.0 | Absolutely. |
| 0:49.3 | So let's just kick off with the basics. What exactly do you guys test? |
| 1:02.6 | So we test products and we test products in the industrial space where our customers are in the B to B environment and we test products in the consumer space where our customers are really in the B to C environment. And then we have a whole set of offerings of software and advisory services that help those customers have better usage of the data and some of the advisory services |
| 1:15.1 | that they need to get their products to market. Now, how do you test? What kind of things do you do |
| 1:21.0 | with the products? Visiting our labs is always such a crowd-pleaser. We do things like we drop things from six feet high, |
| 1:32.9 | see if they break. We break things. We may try to put an anvil on top of, let's say, a helmet for |
| 1:40.3 | personal protective gear. We try to blow things up. Our fire labs here in Northbrook at our |
| 1:45.6 | headquarters, we're constantly lighting things on fire. And then all over the world, we're trying |
| 1:52.2 | to ensure that the way that products are used over and over again meets a set of standards. |
| 1:59.3 | We may stick a boot in a pool of water for 48 hours |
| 2:03.1 | with sensors inside to see if there's any leakage. Anything you could possibly think of to test a |
| 2:08.3 | product, we probably do. And why is the testing market growing? The testing market's growing for a number |
| 2:16.3 | of reasons. And it's really driven by, I would say, the amount of transparency that consumers now have. |
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