YUMA, Ariz. (KYMA, KECY) – A new agriculture company from Norway moved into Yuma County.
Desert Control opened its first operations base in the United States here in Yuma, making it possible for farmers to grow more, with less water.
Participants of the AmCham Mentorship Program attended their fourth and final group gathering; the culmination of a 9-month program consisting of group gatherings and one-on-one mentor-mentee sessions for 62 participants from 26 member organizations across ten industries. The finale, held at IBM’s inviting and interactive Client Center in the heart of downtown Oslo, featured presentations by IBM and Talent Solutions (ManpowerGroup).
Hans-Henrik Merckoll
CEO
May-Britt Falcke
Country Director
At the helm since 2019, Hans-Henrik Merckoll, CEO at IBM Norway has led the company through transformational change including restructuring and global pandemic retooling. When confronted by uncertainty, the leadership compass instinctively points towards the company’s purpose: to be a catalyst for positive change in the world. In addition, “passion emanated through leadership will ultimately evoke the same notion with clients and employees.” Responding to the pandemic aftermath, Merckoll walked participants through initiatives presented at the workplace to maintain the all-important corporate culture. In addition to recognizing high performance amongst employees, their development is also weighted, where also “failures” are part and parcel of the journey towards improvement.
“The new world is built on speed.”
IBM, now focusing on hybrid cloud and AI, is a leading American multinational technology corporation that has thrived for 112 years. In order to maintain status as a preferred technology partner meeting the needs of today and understanding the needs of the future, IBM focuses heavily on research and development. A purpose-led leadership combined with mandatory employee training (R&D curriculum) are, as demonstrated by Merckoll, factors that ensure continued engagement, production levels, and results, in a world that is changing very quicky.
As technological disruption and talent shortages increase the complexity of workforce needs, organizations must optimize talent strategies to execute their business strategies. With over 28 years’ experience with developing teams, May-Britt Falcke, Country Manager at Talent Solutions, knows first-hand how organizations can best be equipped when maneuvering the new talent markets.
One of the world’s largest staffing firms, the ManpowerGroup’s expert family of brands – consisting of Manpower, Experis, Jefferson Wells and Talent Solutions – all provide specialized workforce solutions. Talent Solutions is a global talent management offering that provides outplacement, career management and leadership development. Drawing from the Group’s latest report: The New Human Age, Falcke presented workforce trends shaping the future of work. Shifting demographics (an older workforce), individual choice, tech adoption, and selected competitive drivers were named as the main forces impacting the future of work, each supported by underlying trends. Echoing Merckoll’s point on speed, Falcke also pointed out the rapid development within technology and thus the need for personnel in that field, requiring flexible solutions in order to pivot in this “new age.”
With its unique cross-industry orientation, the AmCham Mentorship Program offers a dynamic, internationally minded arena for leadership development.
The program pairs emerging corporate talent with seasoned executives from AmCham Patron-level member companies. The result: a collaborative arena that fosters improvement and reflection, prepares young leaders for the challenges of the international marketplace, and forges bonds between AmCham member companies.
The Mentorship program is available to Patron-level members of AmCham Norway. For interest in participating in the upcoming edition of AmCham’s Mentorship Program, please contact Margrethe.Harboe@amcham.no.
AmCham Mentorship Program Final Group Gathering 2025-2026: From Potential to Performance Through Culture and Belonging A decade of mentorship has built a strong legacy of
AmCham Mentorship Program Kickoff 2025-2026: Self-Awareness & International Top-level Leadership The 2025–2026 and tenth anniversary edition of the AmCham Mentorship Program kicked off at BI
AmCham Mentorship Program Final Group Gathering: Views on Leadership & Cultivating a Growth Mindset Participants of the 2024-2025 AmCham Mentorship Program attended their fourth and
LITTLETON, Colo., Feb. 17, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) is partnering with the U.S. Navy to integrate hypersonic strike capability onto surface ships.
The U.S. Navy awarded Lockheed Martin a contract worth more than $2 billion, if all options are exercised, to integrate the Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) weapon system onto ZUMWALT-class guided missile destroyers (DDGs). CPS is a hypersonic boost-glide weapon system that enables long range missile flight at speeds greater than Mach 5, with high survivability against enemy defenses.
“Lockheed Martin continues to advance hypersonic strike capability for the United States through this new contract,” said Steve Layne, vice president of Hypersonic Strike Weapon Systems at Lockheed Martin. “Early design work is already underway. Our team looks forward to supporting the warfighter by providing more options to further protect America at sea.”
AmCham’s latest Sustainability Forum, hosted by NHO, brought together members representing diverse industries to learn about the NHO’s newly launched single-use plastic products partnership and from Avinor on how Norway is ideally suited as an international test arena for zero and low-emission aircraft.
Andreas Pihlstrøm, lawyer at NHO and board member of the Norwegian Packaging Association, discussed the newly launched partnership between the Ministry of Climate & Environment and a number of business organizations to reduce the consumption of single-use plastic products. He illustrated how Norwegian businesses can take lead on the ambitious sustained reduction in the consumption of certain plastic products (SUP art. 4). Next is implementation of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) – setting legally binding goals and deadlines.
He also presented on legal trends within plastics and shared resources for public access to information and documentation on the different environmental acts and directives:
Energy Transition Lead Erik By and Infrastructure & Drone Program Manager Terje Orskaug from Avinor unpacked Norway’s integral initiatives and political ambitions set in motion to advance the development of zero and low emission aviation in Norway. These include government actions, promising new technologies, and the creation of an ecosystem to facilitate innovation and establish Norway as an international test arena for new technologies. Furthermore, they discussed the government’s plans and ambitions laid out in the National Aviation Strategy 2023 and the National Transport Plan 2025-26. The aviation industry, with its high political and social importance, has established five main important work packages:
Future success is dependent upon running a sustainable business – for people, planet, and profit. Hence, since 2018, AmCham has brought select, cross-industry member company representatives together to discuss opportunities, facilitate open exchange and determine how AmCham members can best contribute to Norwegian and US sustainability agendas going forward.
Read more about our Sustainability Forum and please contact Janice.Gundersen@amcham.no for interest in future meetings.
NEW YORK, Feb 15 (Reuters) – Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) will use technology from Honeywell International Inc (HON.O) to capture carbon dioxide at a proposed hydrogen production facility in Texas, Honeywell said.
Honeywell said the technology would enable Exxon to capture about 7 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year, equivalent to emissions from 1.5 million automobiles for one year, Honeywell said.
The facility at Baytown, Texas, facility, is expected to start operating by 2028.
Air Products (NYSE: APD) today announced plans to broaden its Americas presence by establishing two new Project Delivery offices in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and Buffalo, New York (NY).
“Given the increasing number of projects in the United States and Canada, and the evolving footprint of our industrial gas business, additional offices in these locations will place our business in a strong position,” said Anthony Buzzeo, Air Products’ General Manager – Americas. “We have strategically located these new execution offices close to our project sites, which has several benefits including access to a strong technical talent pool and proximity to several distinguished engineering schools.”
BI has signed a collaboration agreement with Harvard Division of Continuing Education, allowing high-achieving students to experience the 2023 Harvard Summer School program.
BI’s commitment to providing global opportunities for its students is further enhanced by its new collaboration with Harvard Division of Continuing Education.
Qualified BI students will go through an internal application process, and those selected will be nominated to Harvard Summer School. Students at the bachelor and master level from all study programmes at BI are invited to apply, provided they meet the academic and English-language requirements.
2022 was a year marked by both high activity and several new initiatives for our responsible investment work. For the first time, we also publish a full list of all the company meetings we have had.
Climate change was high on the agenda also in 2022. We launched our 2025 Climate action plan, where we set out actions targeted at driving portfolio companies towards net zero emissions by 2050. We will actively push them towards this target.
The story of America is a story of progress and resilience…We are the only country that has emerged from every crisis stronger than when we entered it. That is what we are doing again. Two years ago our economy was reeling. As I stand here tonight, we have created a record 12 million new jobs – more jobs created in two years than any president has ever created in four years.
Overlooking the Oslofjord, AmCham’s latest Sustainability Forum hosted by Wikborg Rein convened members for a timely briefing on sustainability reporting standards and an introduction of a novel service designed to solve a renewable energy conundrum.
Elise Johansen – Partner
Tonje Hagen Geiran – Associate & Special Adviser
Matthew Geraghty – Founder and Venture Lead
Kate Butchart – Strategic Advisor
Celebrating 100 years, and one of Norway’s largest full-service law firms, Wikborg Rein boasts of a team with comprehensive expertise on sustainability-related matters. On that team is Partner Elise Johansen, who invited participants to take a step back and consider the intention behind sustainability reporting.
In essence, sustainable development still encompasses the decades-old recognition of connectivity between social, economic, and environmental issues. As a response, a set of policy initiatives has been systemized into The European Green Deal to ensure sustainable development with defined goals such as no net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050. Through reporting obligations, the objective is that private investments will be steered towards sustainable activity, thus making ESG risk an actual financial risk.
Associate & Special Adviser Tonje Hagen Geiran then presented reporting obligations as defined by the newly adopted Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) that requires companies to report on the impact of corporate activities on the environment and society, in turn, making businesses more accountable. CSRD reporting is applicable to approximately 1700 business in Norway that meet a set of criteria including number of employees and revenue. This reporting standard is expected to become applicable to a larger number of businesses as soon as 2026. To conclude, Geiran urged businesses to get a good grip on risks to remain attractive for investors.
Wind farming is hailed as one of our time’s reliable sources of clean and renewable of energy. Not being addressed with the same level of observation, however, is wind turbines’ impact once they reach end-of-life. For lack of a better solution, wind turbine components are currently buried underground. To solve this challenge, ReWind, a digital service that facilitates the planning of sustainable decommissioning and recycling of wind turbines has been formed. The innovative offering is a collaboration between DNV and Reodor Studios.
Founder and venture lead Matthew Geraghty explained that projected waste per year generated by wind turbines by 2025 is 25,000 tons. DNV is the world’s leading classification society and also advises customers within the wind farming sector. Geraghty explained how a recent call for a ban on the use of landfills for all turbine components has been called for by WindEurope and that new EU taxonomy will require wind asset owners to ensure turbine components are recycled responsibly.
“Design is one of the key pillars that will help the (energy) transition.”
Reodor Studios is a corporate venture and innovation agency helping leading firms improve existing products and services, or as in this case, create new ones. Strategic Advisor Kate Butchart started with acknowledging that sustainability is arguably the biggest innovation driver and business opportunity of our time. A shift beyond a traditional linear economy, to a “triple-line”-approach (social, environmental, and economic) will progress to a regenerative economy, where principles from ReWind can be applied.
Future success is dependent upon running a sustainable business – for people, planet, and profit. Hence, AmCham brings select, cross-industry member company representatives together on an ongoing basis to discuss opportunities, facilitate open exchange and determine how AmCham members can best contribute to Norwegian and US sustainability agendas going forward.
Read more about our Sustainability Forum and please contact Janice.Gundersen@amcham.no for interest in future meetings.
AmCham Sustainability Forum – Sustainable Supply Chains & New Energy Technologies AmCham recently welcomed members to an engaging Sustainability Forum session hosted by Nestlé. The
AmCham Sustainability Forum – Navigating AI & New Energy Realities Cross-industry AmCham members convened for the latest Sustainability Forum to examine how Generative AI, shifting
AmCham Sustainability Forum: Walking the Line Amidst Uncertainty & Sustainability in Higher Education Cross-industry member companies convened at Sustainability AS for the latest Sustainability Forum,
