Kristiansund Kommune is a municipality located on the western coast of Norway. A small town of just 24,000 inhabitants, Kristiansund has big aspirations for its citizens and believes in using technology to empower future change. Over the past few years, this has meant migrating to the cloud and using it to develop ground-breaking solutions specifically designed for its community.
From a COVID-19 platform to an AI solution tackling mental illness, these projects have been crucial in helping Kristiansund Kommune to tackle the pandemic, improve its operations and support its citizens.
All posts by Margrethe Harboe
Skriftlig spørsmål fra Ingjerd Schou (H) til utenriksministeren
Spørsmål
Ingjerd Schou (H): Hvordan vil nedleggelsen av generalkonsulatet i Houston, Texas, påvirke Norges arbeid med å ivareta de diplomatiske båndene til Norges viktigste allierte?
Begrunnelse
I en pressemelding 9. september 2022 varsler Utenriksdepartementet at generalkonsulatet i Houston, sammen med fire andre utenriksstasjoner, vil legges ned.
Les svar HER.
StormGeo to provide severe weather warnings for more than 60 onshore US wind farms
Sustainable energy company Avangrid has announced that it will start using advanced forecasting services from weather intelligence provider StormGeo for its onshore wind farms across the USA.
Ty Kristensen, director of Avangrid’s National Control Center for the company’s renewables business, said, “Safety is our most important goal. As such, we must have accurate and timely alerts when lightning or high wind speeds might pose a risk to crews working around high-voltage equipment, performing up-tower maintenance or crane operations. Additionally, having 48-hour and seven-day forecasts allows us to drill down to quickly identify the likelihood that weather conditions will disrupt maintenance activities. Overall, we were impressed with the high-quality visualizations in the portal and StormGeo’s reputation for rarely having system outages.”
AmCham Mentorship Program – Group Gathering 3, 2022
AmCham Mentorship Program - 3rd Group Gathering
Leaders’ commitment to sustainability and employee wellbeing were on the agenda as participants of the 2022-2023 edition of the AmCham Mentorship Program attended their third group gathering at BCG’s Oslo office. There, presentations featured AmCham members BCG and Coca-Cola Europacific Partners Norway (CCEP).
Robert Hjorth
Partner
Carl Lescroart
Vice President & Country Director
Martine Bjørnstad Malterud
Assistant Director Strategy & Insight
Happiness in Focus
As one of the leading consumer goods companies in the world, with 33,000 employees across 29 markets, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners has made it their priority to map employee engagement locally whilst maintaining high awareness of their global impact. While the world was “set on pause,” with many unknowns emerging from the pandemic, more credence was lent to questioning happiness, as explained by Carl Lescroart, Vice President & Country Director Norway.
“When I will have died, there is no one who will say: he increased the market share of Dove.”
To support the individual’s wellbeing as an integrated strategy, Martine Bjørnstad Malterud, Head of Strategic Planning/ Assistant Director Strategy & Insight, showed guests how they have implemented concrete steps within the organization, including regular questionnaires. Moreover, conveying a sense of purpose, duty and service ultimately engages employees at a fundamental level. Lescroart elaborated, explaining that empathy and courage displayed in leadership will in turn encourage employees to raise their voice. The importance of purpose was illustrated by the following quote by Paul Polman, former CEO of Unilever. “When I will have died, there is no one who will say: he increased the market share of Dove.”
The Biggest Challenge
Arguably, there is no larger leadership challenge facing both current and future leaders than steering towards sustainability pledges set by the international community. Partner Robert Hjorth leads BCG’s climate and sustainability work in Norway and outlined the current state of greenhouse gas emission’s effect on global warming, and the path towards net zero emissions by 2050. At the current trajectory, and without drastic action, the world will not reach the goal of 1.5°C by 2050, nor well below 2°C.
The corporate agenda for climate action can be broken down into: commit, act, and engage. In addition to proactive investments and innovations, all must actively seek opportunities to collaborate in order to move forward, together.
Hjorth then gave a synopsis of Norway’s situation and projected development of emission targets through 2050. BCG’s roadmap shows that a feasible and affordable pathway to net zero (and beyond) for Norway does exist, if a holistic approach to climate action, prioritization and capital allocation is taken.
As illustrated by both presentations, implementing ambitious sustainability targets is imperative to the goal of retaining talent within the organization, as it demands a purpose-led strategy, as well as stakeholders who are aware of the necessity of sustainable action in order to operate competitively.
Photos: BCG Norway
Participating Companies 2022-23:
About the AmCham Mentorship Program
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 further information and interest in the program, please contact Margrethe.Harboe@amcham.no.
Past Mentorship Program Events
AmCham Mentorship Program Final Group Gathering 2025-2026
February 19, 2026
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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
May 14, 2025
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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 2024-25
February 12, 2025
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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
Amogy hires Yara director to launch Norway operations
US-based Amogy Inc., a pioneer of emission-free ammonia power solutions, has announced the opening of its Norway operations with the hiring of Christian W. Berg, Managing Director, Amogy Norway.
Berg will be tasked with accelerating Amogy’s effort in commercialising its ammonia-to-power technology with partners in the Scandinavian countries.
“Norway and its forward-thinking maritime industry recognised the immense opportunity that ammonia presents as a green fuel, which gave the country a head start in establishing the needed infrastructure, so it only makes sense for Amogy to establish a significant presence here,” said, Seonghoon Woo, CEO of Amogy.
Google Cloud Announces Plans for First Cloud Region in Norway
Google Cloud announced that it is bringing its first cloud region to Norway to support the country’s sustainable digitization and meet growing demand for cloud services locally and around the world. The new cloud region will help bring innovations from across Google closer to our local customers and provide them with a platform that enables organizations to operate in a more resource efficient way.
The Norway cloud region will give local businesses the choice to keep their data onshore, retain data sovereignty and drive their digital transformation efforts locally with speed, security and sustainability at the core. Like all our cloud regions, the Norway region will be matched by 100% renewable energy annually and in accordance with Google’s global commitment, aim to operate on 24/7 carbon-free energy by 2030, thus providing local customers with clean, sustainable infrastructure to power their businesses and technology.
The Norwegian State Budget 2023 – What Do International Companies Need to Know?
On October 6th, Norway’s minority center-left coalition government formed by the Labor and Center Parties presented its proposal for the 2023 National Budget. Less Government Pension Fund spending, changes in income tax, continued electricity subsidies, and strengthening of National security are some of the notable features.
AmCham Norway and Hill+Knowlton Norge have summarized the proposed budget with the international focus of AmCham members in mind.
Read report here: https://bit.ly/3RYJazE
President Biden Signs Executive Order to Implement the European Union-U.S. Data Privacy Framework
President Biden signed an Executive Order on Enhancing Safeguards for United States Signals Intelligence Activities (E.O.) directing the steps that the United States will take to implement the U.S. commitments under the European Union-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (EU-U.S. DPF) announced by President Biden and European Commission President von der Leyen in March of 2022.
Transatlantic data flows are critical to enabling the $7.1 trillion EU-U.S. economic relationship. The EU-U.S. DPF will restore an important legal basis for transatlantic data flows by addressing concerns that the Court of Justice of the European Union raised in striking down the prior EU-U.S. Privacy Shield framework as a valid data transfer mechanism under EU law.
US expected to publish Privacy Shield executive order
The White House is expected to publish its long-awaited executive order on transatlantic data transfers next week, according to three officials with knowledge of the matter.
The order is designed to address European concerns over surveillance practices in the United States and may be signed by President Joe Biden and then published as early as October 3, one of the officials said.
As part of the upcoming announcement, the White House declaration is expected to work in conjunction with new U.S. Department of Justice regulations used to oversee American national security agencies, according to Peter Swire, a former Bill Clinton administration chief counselor for privacy and current professor at Georgia Tech, whose work has formed part of the legal basis for the leading framework of the new Privacy Shield.
Record Norwegian North Sea oil exports to help Europe fill Russian gap
(Bloomberg) — Record exports of Norway’s Johan Sverdrup crude oil are set to help meet European refineries’ needs as a deadline to phase out Russian supplies draws closer.
Loadings from the huge Johan Sverdrup field in the North Sea, operated by Norway’s Equinor ASA, will rise to 587,000 barrels a day in November, according to a program seen by Bloomberg. That compares with an average of 500,000 barrels a day in the first three quarters of this year.
The European Union’s planned sanctions on Russian seaborne crude are due to come into force in early December. While refineries have reduced the purchases of Russia’s Urals crude markedly since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, they still imported about 840,000 barrels a day of the flagship grade last month, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg.