The 2025 Honorary Alum of the Year Award goes to CEO Bent Jensen.

Bent Jensen graduated as a mechanical engineer in 1976 from Sønderborg Teknikum (merged into SDU in 1998). He is a successful engineer, entrepreneur, businessman and investor.

Bent Jensen took over the small family-owned workshop Christian Jensen & Sønner (now LINAK) from his father in 1976. A company that he has since developed into a global, market-leading business within linear actuators. Today, LINAK has approximately 2,400 employees worldwide, production facilities in Denmark, China, USA, Slovakia and Thailand and subsidiaries in more than 30 countries.

Bent Jensen has a strong desire to give something back to society – and, not least, to contribute to the development of SDU Sønderborg. For example, LINAK has made significant donations to establish the Centre for Industrial Electronics (CIE) in 2017, the Centre for Industrial Mechanics (CIM) in 2020, the Centre for Industrial Software (CIS) in 2022 and, most recently, SDU Centre for Sustainable Supply Chain Engineering (CSD) in 2024.