- FläktGroup
- FläktGroup Insights: Driving Innovation
- Looking Ahead: CEO David Dorney Discusses Growth and Collaboration with Samsung
Looking Ahead: CEO David Dorney Discusses Growth and Collaboration with Samsung
- Theme
- People
- Reading time
- 10:00
- Published
- By
- Sue Varley
As the newly appointed CEO, David Dorney is set to guide FläktGroup into an exciting new chapter as part of Samsung Electronics.
Driving Growth and Leadership: David’s Impact Since Joining FläktGroup
Since joining FläktGroup in February 2024 as the Chief Sales Officer, Dave, from Cork in Southern Ireland, has spearheaded numerous positive changes and demonstrated determination, a strong growth mindset, and outstanding leadership. Together with being a key stakeholder during the Samsung acquisition process, these qualities make him an excellent choice to lead the company forward.
Prior to joining FläktGroup Dave worked for Johnson Controls, where he began his career in October 2000 and progressed through a variety of leadership roles, including Vice President and General Manager of the EMEA Heating and Cooling division. He led the field business, overseeing more than 1,500 employees across 14 countries. In this role, Dave drove growth in key vertical markets such as Life Sciences, Food & Beverage, Manufacturing, and Industrial, while also spearheading the development of the region’s sustainability division.
We sat down with Dave to hear his vision for the future, the opportunities ahead, and what this new partnership with Samsung means for FläktGroup.
As our new CEO, what's your vision and what goals do you want to achieve?
Our vision is clear: we want to move forward with Samsung in 2026 and beyond, becoming a global leader in HVAC. That means working closely with our customers and partners alike, addressing their key challenges like carbon footprint reduction. It’s a big mission, especially with the climate crisis and its impact on people’s wellbeing.
Our goals focus on innovation, quality, and sustainability. We’ll keep developing energy-efficient solutions and smart technologies that make buildings healthier and safer. FläktGroup has already been doing this for more than 100 years, leveraging our broad product portfolio and investing in new solutions – and now we are taking it to the next level.
What are FläktGroup's biggest strengths, and how will you build on them?
FläktGroup has deep roots—our story goes back to 1909. That’s over a century of engineering excellence. We’ve pioneered ventilation systems for commercial and industrial buildings, clean rooms, marine applications, and fire safety.
We are proud of our teams, their deep expertise in their respective fields, and the passion they bring to their work every day. We want our FläktGroup family to grow and develop in the best way possible, which is why we continually invest in training and developing our people. Alongside this, our 14 global manufacturing facilities deliver top-quality solutions, supported by field-trained after-sales service engineers who provide peace of mind to our loyal customers.
One area of deep expertise is in data centre cooling—we’ve been supporting this sector believe it or not, for more than 60 years. This experience means we understand every detail, from precision cooling to energy efficiency.
And now, with Samsung, we’ll integrate advanced HVAC controls with smart building platforms like SmartThings Pro and b.IoT, creating solutions that are connected, efficient, and future-ready.
Our collaboration with Samsung is pivotal to our ambition to become a partner of choice for the entire HVAC solution in many sectors, from comfort solutions in hotels and offices to mission critical solutions for pharmaceutical and clean room applications. We will also be continuing to scale our offering also in cloud-based data centres together with high density AI solutions.
We will pursue innovation/quality and energy-efficiency in all future projects and products we deliver. And it will happen fast.
How do you see the HVAC market today and in the future?
The HVAC market is strong and growing, driven by energy efficient mandates, rising urbanisation, smart technology adoption (IoT, AI), and increased focus on indoor air quality (IAQ), with projections showing significant expansion through 2030-2035, Key trends include demand for heat pumps, low-GWP refrigerants, and smart connected systems.
Obviously, we are seeing rapid innovation in liquid cooling technologies, which are evolving at lightning speed. Globally, demand for energy-efficient HVAC systems is rising in regions like North America, Europe, and APAC. The outlook for our industry is positive, and we’re ready to adapt and lead.
Can you tell us about some of the major projects in Europe and other regions where we have supplied HVAC?
There are many examples where Fläktgroup has supported our partners in both new build and turnkey retrofit solutions. These are just a few examples of our recent important projects, there are many more.
- We delivered a turnkey solution in Sweden for our customer who is building a CO2 free steel production plant,
- We delivered several defence projects within our marine business, supporting US and Indian navy vessels together with complex solutions for submarine applications.
- We have achieved out first cross-selling success in the US where we delivered FläktGroup Air solutions together with Samsung modular chillers for controlling the environmental conditions in an aerospace application.
- Web have onboarded a number of new customers in the data centre market and plan for more.
- We have provided on-site support on several key projects both in the cloud service and AI applications in Europe, US, Middle East and India.
In addition, we have just completed a very successful Truck Tour – affectionately named Fläkt on Wheels - where we brought solutions directly to our customers’ doorsteps, visiting 18 countries , 45 locations, and meeting 1200 plus customers – an impressive result.
Where do you see synergies between Samsung and FläktGroup?
There are a lot of opportunities, and I wake up every day with new ideas.
We are looking at cross-selling opportunities, supply chain integration, and joining forces when it comes to R&D to accelerate the time to market with our key NPI (new product introduction) roadmap.
By combining FläktGroup’s HVAC expertise with Samsung’s technology leadership, we can create smarter, more connected solutions. For example, integrating our HVAC systems with Samsung’s SmartThings Pro and b.IoT platforms will open doors to advanced energy management and smart building solutions.
Samsung also brings strong AI capabilities, which we can use to optimise performance and efficiency.
Which regions or industries will we focus on next?
Our priority is to build on our new partnership with Samsung and continue workshops and meetings between our teams which started in 2025. We’re focusing on CDU technology and expanding our FläktEdge smart control systems. We’re also investing in R&D to speed up delivery and support partner projects. In addition to our expansion in the vertical markets already mentioned, we are also focused on geographical expansion. This is what we believe our customers want to see us doing to meet the challenges of the current market.
We are investing in new production facilities and field services in India and the US where we see significant growth opportunities for FläktGroup in the coming years this is both in the data centre market but also leveraging our indoor climate solutions.
The new plant in Korea is another focus. We want to quickly establish a footprint in this area and have a strong presence in the Asian market which is home to Samsung. Our teams are already working on this project and plan for this to move forward quickly in 2026 with orders being fulfilled in the interim from our factories in India and Turkey. The new plant in Korea will be a centre of excellence and a template for all future FläktGroup factories.
Looking into the future, where do you see FläktGroup in ten years' time?
I see FläktGroup as a global leader in HVAC—a trusted name everywhere. We’ll be known for sustainability, smart technology, and energy efficiency.
We’re committed to shaping a greener future and our sustainability policy sets out a number of ways of achieving our goals by having a clear technology roadmap for organic growth alongside a strategy to complement our offering through significant inorganic investments.
Some examples of the current focus areas to underscore our commitment to a more sustainable solution provider include -
- Expanding EPD coverage to 95% of products by 2026
- Launching our smart control solution FläktEdge specifically for key mission critical vertical market
- Embedding circular economy principles into design and packaging.