As I have been speaking with clients and meeting with potential clients, I often get asked, “what is the meaning of Fortro?” When I began preparing to launch this venture earlier this year, I genuinely pondered how best to represent my services, from a name to colors to a website. In the midst of my thinking, I recalled an article in the Wall Street Journal about naming a hedge fund to indicate strength and acumen because, and I paraphrase, “every type of rock, tree and Greek symbol has been taken.” I also engaged in a fleeting thought of an “x”, “q” or lowercase “i” in the name, even if it breaks all the customary rules of spoken and written English -- but eases the ability to secure a unique URL. Nope. While I decided by my own admission another hackneyed process to settle on a name – stylizing a non-English word, the basis of my choice wholly underscores the ethos and professional approach I portray and which has been the overarching principle of my professional conduct for decades.
Fortro is a shortening of förtroende, a Swedish word. While the word has a number of positive meanings (confidence and faith, which are positive describers in their own right), I chose it to be my professional moniker for its other primary meaning – trust, the cornerstone of any relationship.
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