Looking Ahead: CEO David Dorney Discusses Growth and Collaboration with Samsung

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.