Henrik Stiesdal (born April 14, 1957) is a Danish inventor and businessman in the modern wind power industry.

During his professional career, Stiesdal has made more than 175 inventions and has received more than 650 patents related to wind power technology.

In 1976, Stiesdal became motivated by the steam plume from a powerplant cooling tower in England to build two small test turbines out of wood, steel and fabric.

[5] In 1978, Henrik Stiesdal designed (along with Karl Erik Jørgensen) one of the first wind turbines representing the so-called "Danish concept"; upwind, horizontal axis, three blades.

[6] In 1979, his design was licensed to Vestas A/S, a Danish manufacturer of farm wagons, truck cranes and ship coolers.

[9][10] Stiesdal became the Chief Technology Officer of Siemens Wind Power and remained in this position until the end of 2014, when he retired.

He is now working on a startup that will produce massive tetrahedral structures that he designed that will serve as bases for floating wind turbines.

[12] Stiesdal's initial work in the late 1970s and early 1980s contributed significantly to the development of the simple and robust technologies of the so-called Danish Concept, comprising upwind, automatic yawing and two-speed stall-regulated turbines with fail-safe safety systems.

From 1999 onwards, Stiesdal was in charge of the development of Siemens’ Direct Drive technology, eliminating the gearbox which is the classical weak spot of traditional wind turbine design.