Overview

Extensive teaching experience from undergraduate, graduate and executive levels. Topics include (but not limited to) strategy, competitive analysis, technological change, innovation, business cycle shocks, platform competition, and strategic human capital. Co-authored a strategy book that is currently used at several business schools in the Nordics. Developed several courses and programs, including an EMBA Program. Academic Director at NHHs EMBA program. Awarded Excellent Teaching Practitioner at NHH Norwegian School of Economics in 2023 and the students teaching award in 2017. View teaching as a creative activity more than a duty.

Philosophy

The fundamental learning objective of my field, strategy, is to enable people to make better and more informed (real life) business decisions to increase the likelihood of success for their firm or organization. To achieve this, the essence is to build a bridge between the theory and practice of strategy.

Kurt Lewin (1951) famously said that “nothing is as practical as a good theory”. I believe that a solid understanding of theory and frameworks, and their assumptions and limitations, makes people better equipped to assess and tackle real life challenges and opportunities. In other words, I believe that practical relevance can be achieved without compromising on theory, and that good understanding of theory itself is a very practical strategy tool if applied correctly.

Key to this, in my view, is to make things simple. Not to dumb things down, but to carve a learning point to the bone. Not to skip the complex parts, but to focus on the part of the content that really matter. And not just echo what can be read, but to present content in a way that makes it stick with the students.

Leonardo Da Vinci reportedly stated that simplicity is the ultimate form of sophistication. And I truly believe this. Complex is easy. Easy is hard. Easy sticks. Complex doesn’t.

The extension of this is that I increasingly view teaching as a creative and developmental activity also for myself. Making teaching engaging and useful is hard, but for this exact reason it also represent an intriguing creative challenge. I also use my teaching as an arena to both test new ideas and get new ones. And as a bonus you always have the old Richard Feynman saying that if you want to master something, you should teach it. He surely had a point because the easiest way to be aware of the holes in your knowledge or logic is to explain it to someone.

Experience

Today, I teach one course at the regular programs at NHH. One is the BSc course in Strategic Management (400+ students). I have also been in charge of the MSc courses «Strategy with Finance» and «Strategic Analysis», and regularly appear as a guest lecturer in courses at BSc, MSc and PhD-level at NHH.

On executive education level, I am the Academic Director for several Executive Programs, including the EMBA in Strategic Management, the EMBA in Technology and Innovation of Finance, and until recently, academic director for the executive masters module in innovation management (Brytningstid). I teach regularly on NHH’s executive MBA’s in Strategy (MASTRA), -Management Control and Leadership (MØST) and -Technology and Innovation of Finance (FINTECH), and I also regularly teach on a wide range of other executive programs at NHH.

I have also been much involved in program development. I developed NHHs Executive MBA in Technology and Innovation of Finance, one of the world’s first MBA-programs devoted to Fintech. I also developed NHH Business Upgrade, an open, module-based executive program, which we during the pandemic redeveloped and re-launched as NHH Executive Online.

In terms of supervision, I have supervised 30+ master thesis projects , one PhD-candidate, and 30+ executives for their MBA theses or capstone projects.

Finally, I have also held various education management positions. I was a profile coordinator for the MSc Strategy-profile and leader for the Strategy teaching group at the department (2016-2018). I was a member of a task force at the Department of Strategy and Management to explore a renewal of the MSc strategy-profile (2018), and joined the reference group for the Strategy MSc Profile in 2020. I have been a member of NHH Executive Teaching Committee(2018-2021), and I have chaired a task force initiated by the rectorate to develop and renew the education offering at NHH.

Talks & Workshops

I regularly give talks at industry conferences and events, and talks or workshops to both private and public organizations. My talks are usually related to strategy, technological change, innovation, business cycles, digitalization, or human capital, one way or another. But I may also deviate grossly from these topics and give talks about other things like indie music or street art.