# Nordstadt CEO: Transparency, Focus, and Leadership

**Podcast:** LEITWOLF Podcast - Leadership, Führung & Management
**Published:** 2026-01-29

## Transcript

I always get inspired when seeing somebody succeeding and beating the odds.
Stay optimistic.
I'm very optimistic.
I'm even optimistic about the future for Europe.
To me, good leadership, partially, it's good in itself, and that's a value.
Hello, dear listener.
Here is Stefan, your podcast host.
And today I have a huge pleasure to welcome one of the most exceptional CEOs I've ever had the pleasure to work for and work with.
With us today, Erling Eriksson, CEO of Nordstadt.
Dear Ellen, welcome to the Lightwolf podcast.
Thank you so much, Stefan.
Great pleasure to be here.
Thank you for the um thank you for inviting me.
My huge pleasure.
Yeah, for you folks on the call.
A few facts on the human that already give you a glimpse on why I am so glad and so honored today.
Born 1978 in a small town south of Oslo.
He says about himself typical Norwegian upbringing with sports and friends.
And I can testify to the sports side because we've had a couple of really interesting exchanges already on sports.
Erling joined the army for two years, which is another element that unites us.
I've also been a soldier for uh a bit more than a year.
Erling then went to university and studied history and political science.
And one of the reasons why he did so is that these two subjects make it easier to understand and connect with people, which I think is one of the elements, Erling, that unites you and me.
You are very people centric.
Yeah, from the first moment we met three years ago, throughout every conversation, I just realize and feel how strongly you're guided by people on your mind.
You graduated with a master in political science and then specialized in quantitative methodology in 2005.
That's also when you started working at as a trainee in your current company.
And it took you only 16 years from trainee to CEO, which is remarkable.
You are working in the private equity environment.
I know that their speed is of the essence.
So you your speed come confirmed and fit well to PE, but this is really remarkably fast from a trainee position to the top position at the helmet.
In between Northstart, you also spent a year as a consultant and finished an executive MBA.
And personally, you shared that today.
And your life, in fact, centers around work and family.
Welcome to this podcast.
You have a highly accomplished career that many of us, everyone on the call, self included, will learn from in this conversation.
And I'm delighted you share some of your experience and some of some of your learning with us.
And if okay for you, I'd like to start on a very personal note.
Do you still remember your young?
You will remember who you were as a teenager.
First of all, thank you for the very nice introduction.
I'm flattered, obviously.
But thank you, Stefan.
Um, and again, big pleasure to be here.
Yes, I remember the former TV years very well.
I would suspect that um that most of us do actually.
I like to consider myself some still fairly young.
So the former TVAs, yeah, they they stuck and I remember it remember them very well.
Do you still remember who you wanted to become when you were a teenager?
Yeah, I think um, and I I will use this opportunity to mention this small town south of Oslo, which you didn't mention.
Uh, it's called Holden.
Uh, I'm proud to be from Holden, it's a great place.
Everyone should see it.
And I remember growing up in that nice town, and I wanted to be at least entering my teenage teenager years.
I wanted to be a footballer.
I don't think I had a specific one at the time, but I was, you know, I remember all the World Cups, all the European championships, what was then Champions League, or what became Champions League, uh, and also so I wanted to be a footballer.
Amazing.
It's a the dream of some young boys and young men.
How intentional was that dream, and for how long did you keep on dreaming about that career?
Yeah, I think I ran out of talent mid-teens towards end teens, depending a bit on how honest I am.
Every now and then I blame my my failed football career on uh on some back injuries and some back trouble.
Uh, but in all honesty, I ran out of talent combined.
I think that during younger years I kind of had the physical ability.
I I had speed, and that helps you.
I was left footed, so speed on the left side, that was kind of my claim to fame.
But eventually, I'm thinking back at it now, also football, even if you have a physical talent, requires more grit and more training, more hours on the ground, and what I was willing to uh understood that I had to put in some lessons already then in hindsight, unfortunately.
Yeah, um very interesting perspective, because some people say the determining and distinguishing factor between those who dream about the career and do something else, like you and me, is not skill, it's will yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
Would you agree with that?
Yes, and do you still recall when you realized it's still great, it's still fascinating, but I'm not sure I'm gonna I'm ready to invest that.
Yeah, I think I reached a stage where I understood that it wasn't meant to be on the top level, and it's an interesting kind of question in a way between correlation or causality in the way, and the chicken or the egg, what grow what, right?
Wasn't the lack of willingness, uh, was it lack of talent?
Was it the realization that this was going to be particularly hard?
So, but anyway, I I felt I fell a bit out of love with the sport for some time, and that led to me spending a couple of years with less training.
Now we are later teens, but I rejoined the team, but that was never a top flight team, but it had an exceptional strong culture, and then I I fell in love again with the sport for a couple of years and had maybe the greatest times, even if it wasn't kind of on the top-top level, it wasn't kind of an ambitions, nobody was going to go somewhere, but it was a strong determination to win in that team.
So I still think about that very fondly still.
But I totally agree with you.
Talent is not enough.
There needs to be there needs to be will, yeah.
And maybe a final question related to these early years and to these kind of two chapters of your career.
Early teens determined to pursue and to develop and to at least dream of a professional career.
And then later teens coming to a realization that maybe it's gonna play a role lifelong, but a different role.
And that most of the audience here on the call now are working in.
Do you agree that the corporate world can learn lessons from competitive and even professional sports?
Yes, I would say so 100%.
I mean, I brought with me, I like to think at least several lessons.
I had never done professional sports, and I'm not going to pretend for the sake of making this a nice conversation that I have.
I haven't so, but I'm sure I'm sure corporate life has a lot to learn from uh professional sports, and I also guess that professional sport is kind of corporate sports, depending a bit on the circumstances, right?
But the sporting culture, the team culture is amazing and something I see as extremely valuable, partially to create performance, but also partially to create this shared joy of an accomplishment, an achievement, or a result.
The pure joy you feel when you deliver for your coach and when you deliver for your teammates, and sharing that jaw that joy in the locker room afterwards, it's hard to replicate.
I mean, even if it's the deal of the lifetime or the biggest win of a project, or you know, whatever circumh circumstances you find yourself in, it's it's hard to let replicate that shared joy, but maybe we should strive harder to kind of yeah to replicate it in corporate life.
Yeah, great um thought.
Um I can just echo the feeling because I went through a similar path until my mid-teens played for a professional team, youth team, and then switched.
In my case, just because my physical strength at the time was simply not strong enough to compete with people two years older.
That was my excuse, if you want.
I also feel like success in corporate is great fun and very motivating.
And still it feels different to the successes you can have as a football player in the team.
Anyway, great lessons to learn.
Now I know from having met you three years ago, from having worked with you, from having worked with your leadership team, from the conversations before and after the workshops we've had.
I know a little bit about what inspires you.
Would you share a bit more?
What are the main things that inspire you in life?
Yeah.
Good question.
I guess I'm inspired by many things, and I get inspiration every day from something.
It could be reading in an article on the way down to work on the tram.
It could be my voice accomplishing something.
But I think in general, I mean, I always get inspired when seeing somebody succeeding and beating the odds.
We have some great examples in Norway, some of them moving in your direction to Switzerland right now, but that's a political debate.
We don't have to go into that right now.
But some of these entrepreneurs, right?
They have very little education.
Some of them come from very yeah, from let's call it a very normal or and or average background, family wise.
They started with two empty hands and they have become great entrepreneurs, uh, shipping industry, tech allows, obviously inspiring to see how it's possible to succeed without going the kind of normal career route without going to the right university, then consulting, then corporate, and so obviously inspiring, but it could be that in sports as well, you know, people with disabilities succeeding and work wise to kind of try to take it a bit closer to what I'm doing every day.
I think one of the real benefits of having worked here for quite some time is you see people coming in quite young, they are a bit nervous, they're a bit insecure, they don't know exactly how to deal with corporate life with their colleagues, um, all these things, might be a bit afraid of a client, and you know how where people start their careers and seeing them grow to see the fire in their eyes when they crack the nut and they understand that hmm, I'm on to something, and how you can kind of fuel that feeling uh by giving them the right tools, giving them the right culture, giving them the right colleagues, and so on.
That's an inspiring job.
Uh, or that's that's an inspiring thing to see, which makes this lot the which makes this uh job um yeah, very exciting and a big privilege.
Yeah, awesome.
Yeah, yeah, thank you.
Um let's dwell on one aspect I heard, which is empty hands.
Uh those Norwegian extremely successful entrepreneurs who you know.
One of the things you described is they started with empty hands.
What I'm interpreting into this is hunger also fueled by the absence of resources, the absence of richness when people were young, right?
I call that hunger.
I really to win.
I once just a few weeks ago, I read a quote that stopped me.
And I remember when we first met three years ago in the Lightwolf program for CEOs, there was a quote that you shared that stopped me as well, right?
This quote is how can I get hungry when I'm fed all the time?
Do you have thoughts on this?
How can you create hunger in people who are not empty-handed?
Yeah, that's a good one.
That's a good one.
How do you kind of instill it or how do you affect it?
Um that's a good question to allow myself a minute to think.
I mean, in general terms, I guess it helps in theory theory complexes, a bit of a joke, but still not only as a joke.
I guess that kind of helps this a desire to prove to the world that even if I came from empty hands, or even if I came from nothing, I still have something to prove, and I'm going to show the world that I'm going to be the biggest tanker in the world.
For example, I that that must be a driver for some of those people, I would assume.
I mean, I'm not an entrepreneur myself, so but it's just an assumption, right?
But again, yeah, it's interesting, right?
We can relate it back to sport, maybe just for a second.
Why do the teams continue to win and win and win?
Even if they have, I mean, they won the Premier League, they won the Bundesliga, they won the Champions League, maybe even the World Cup.
I mean, I'm sure you can find some examples of the combination, uh, or at least extremely successful, right?
They've brought home all the silver pair.
It's a bit like that in corporate life, also.
I mean, a company is successful, it's successful year follows successful year that follows successful year, and so on.
How do you maintain it?
I think it's some of this, I would assume comes from personality.
So you need to find the people that are self-driven and self-started that don't that don't just lay down on the coach and feeling ah, I'm fed, there's no more reason to to go to work or to go to practice.
That's part of it, and I guess one of the important jobs in for any leader is to find the right team and to maintain that team.
Every now and then, Jürgen Klopp or whoever it might be, need to do some changes on the starting 11 to make sure, partially, I guess, that the hunger is still there.
That's one thing, maybe easier in football than in corporate life to just kind of change the the starting 11 from from from week to week.
But still, I mean, we all know this.
Every now and then there are some people who are not hungry enough, and they then need to find they need to find that hunger.
Or yeah, well, find that hunger somewhere else.
And I guess personality is one thing, the right team, the people that are self-driven, self-motivated.
But I guess you can always also affect it, right?
By having the right culture.
Culture is extremely important.
If you have a culture for win, we win, and that's what we do.
We might lose a battle every now and then, but we are going to win this war.
Creating and maintaining that culture is extremely important.
And when that culture is there, I think it's extremely hard not to be carried on for the entire team by that culture because that's what we do.
And that's I guess also the definition of culture.
That's how we do things here.
And if you are in a place where you have this culture, we win.
And if we lose one, we are going to come back tomorrow.
We're going to work even harder, we are going to find smarter solutions, we're not going to give up, but we will win.
Yeah, again, I think creating, maintaining that culture, and a culture where you are not necessarily kind of ego-driven, but you win partially for yourself ego and partially for yourself, delivering kind of individual results.
But the big picture here is of course that you win together as a team.
Yeah.
Does it make sense?
It makes absolute sense.
And I have a follow-on on this.
Why?
We are currently being asked by three different companies, Erling, different industries, also different from yours, to start and help make their people-centric organizations more performance-centric.
Now they are all three very careful to say, Look, Stefan, we are not interested in swapping one for the other.
No way.
They are all family businesses.
They are generations of successful leaders, but they realize all three that for their businesses and their companies to still be around in 30 years, they all feel a strong need to strengthen the hunger to strengthen the performance orientation, right?
So that's the angle that my next question comes from.
The question is have you found ways how you can create that desire to win?
Yeah, I would actually like to say that we have.
And I'm I mean, unlike you talking about these things to hundreds, maybe even thousands of companies.
Um, I mean, my experience is limited to our world and our context.
So just, I mean, it's not meant necessarily as a kind of general observational things, but for us, it has worked, and there are some principles, full transparency, or as much transparency as we possibly can share, or as much transparency as possible.
That's a core and fundamental value in the organization.
And we are one should be careful a bit, maybe saying lucky enough to not be a listed company because we don't know what the next door, but right now we are uh we are private equity held, and uh very happily I must say to be private equity head because being able to be transparent is one of the to me the big benefits by being privately held and and not being a listed company, and I'm sure there are some benefits by being a listed company also, however, it allows us to share monthly PNLs from all the markets where we operate, all employees are exposed to their own and all other PNLs and the entire group PNL on a monthly basis, and it's mandatory for managing directors and other heads of the department to go through their own PL and at least the group PNL on a monthly basis.
Partially, we want to give people a real feeling of ownership.
This is your PL statement for Germany, for Switzerland, for Finland, and so on.
So that in itself, I guess it's good.
And you can then compare your PL with all the other markets.
So it's great to grow with six percent in our industry these days.
But if you really believe, if you really look for greatness, you can always look at somebody growing more, or unless you're the company growing the most, obviously.
And if you grow the most, we will there's also the all, I mean, I think in all its simplicity, I love a PL report because it tells you so much about the performance, obviously.
So I mean, if you grow the most, you will always find find somebody with a higher gross margin, you will find somebody with a better opaque revenue uh metric, you will find somebody with it with a better edit the A margin, all these things, but the sharing doesn't stop there.
We share the number of meetings, new business, existing client product meetings from all markets on a monthly basis.
We share KPIs on efficiency.
How many projects have we run per head in each and every market?
And I I mean, I could go on and on and on, and we love to make this information available, and I think it creates a desire to perform.
That's one of the things it's doing because you don't want to be at the bottom of a list.
You want to be at the top of the list.
And it's an efficient tool, hopefully, for the managing directors also to tell their teams, look, last month we were number four, this month it's number three.
Let's aim for the top, right?
And it also creates an environment where I don't have to kick or scream the regional directors who again don't have to, you know, scream to their managing directors that look, guys, we need some more performance here.
Every now and then, obviously, we have our if not screaming matches, or at least we have our arguments like all other companies.
It's far, far away from a perfect organization.
It never will be.
But for us, it works.
If you have the right people, then and you can see how you perform on various metrics.
Yeah, quite a lot of that job is done, I would argue.
So let me recap it's transparency, data, and real ownership as a result of all of this transparency.
Which listening to you feels like in most of the cases, it creates desire.
You don't even need to push, and only that's human.
I mean, I've never seen any company, Elling, where you can only lead by desire.
Only in very few instances you feel a need to have conversations on top of this, or maybe push a bit or correct a bit.
Yeah.
Very interesting to see that this is the driver.
And I'd also like to add, I mean, I'm I've been thinking quite a lot about this because it's extremely important for us in our context that I mean, people are driven to win because North is an organization where we have a de factory, you have a data producing factory at the bottom.
Use our high quality data.
On top of that is a business to base business sales and marketing layer, and our sales and marketing is you know, just like any other company operating in the business to services element.
So having people engage with clients, a desire to walk the extra mile, take do the extra working hours and so on, it's extremely important, right?
And I also think that at least on some level, if you become a managing director, you need to be driven by our way of operating and the desire to win.
I think it's also installed in the organization back to that.
We don't have to scream at each other.
You have we have 100% trust in all managers and leaders to have that until we don't have it, and then we have a much bigger problem than lack of performance.
Yeah, so trust is another element feeding all of this, yeah.
I would say so, absolutely, yeah, yeah.
And you're one of them, Erling.
I've never met anyone who had only successful years and only growth all the time, every month, every year.
Most of the people I met and worked with, we've worked with 11,000 leaders since 14 years, have a dip once in a while for market reasons, or because they made a mistake.
One of the most frequent, maybe the most frequent mistake is to postpone uncomfortable people decisions, or for any other reason.
How do you assess performance in times when the numbers are slightly below target?
Yeah, that's a good one, right?
And I think it's always it's a kind of yeah, it's it's a very good question, and it's very interesting.
And I have given this quite some thought because it's I mean, every now and then you win because of a leader, or you win despite of a leader.
True, and a company can obviously they're supposed to be as well, and a company can perform to its best capability and still have financial numbers dipping.
You're doing everything right, but the market is not there, and the opposite.
So this is very, very hard.
I mean, it's a bit maybe back to transparency or our ability to have optics on results.
We know everything and we have it very easily available, which clients bought what went at which margin, and so on.
So you can see clients coming.
Luckily, it's it's seldom a client leaves us.
We're in that fortunate position.
So we we we have a very kind of a good, we have the finger on the pulse of the market, and we try to do as much as we can to understand the market.
So obviously, if a market or the entire European market dips, well, we will most likely dip with it.
That is to be expected, even if we are doing everything right, even if you're doing everything right in the local market, also, and so that's kind of one thing we need to take into consideration, also the opposite, right?
When the market is growing and we are growing and doing very well, okay, that's good.
We like your six percent to come back to the six percent uh example, but shouldn't it really be eight?
Or I mean, are are you are we really sure that this is the full potential?
This is the maximum.
Are we sure?
We try to understand as much as we possibly can about let's call it the surroundings, and then internally uh we measure the uh the managers, including myself, uh, every year in the employee satisfaction survey.
So all leaders get feedback from all the people reporting to them.
That's a very that's very like it's in our DNA to do that assessment of the leaders, and then obviously you have the feedback from uh from the right uh from um yeah, in the normal reporting line.
Uh, are you doing what you should?
So I guess it's a kind of combination of internal affairs, external affairs, uh quantitative assessment and qualitative from peers and team, and then yeah, we work together every day, so it's also I believe a very fair fair and honest feedback on a more or less constant basis amongst each other.
I think that would describe a package, so to say.
Cool, thank you for sharing that.
This is a leadership podcast.
We've been working on leadership since we know each other.
So it's maybe sounds a bit like an obvious question, but in fact, it's not.
I'm curious, why is good leadership important to you?
Another good question, and I I think to me personally, I am affected by leadership, also, even if I had the great privilege to be the CEO in an organization.
So I kind of receive leadership from partially.
It could be the board, it could be the deal team on the private equity side, it could be the chairman, it could be you know the group management, other leaders in Northstadt.
So I'm also affected by that.
And I've seen throughout my 20 years, luckily, most of the examples have been, you know, great leaders surrounded by great leaders, fantastic, and great opportunity to learn, obviously.
So that's a kind of personal, let's call it selfish uh understanding of leadership for myself, but a bit broader.
I think to me, good leadership has I mean, partially it's good in itself, and that's a value because people feel better when they receive good leadership or when good leadership is present, so people have better, more constructive, more enjoyable days.
That is a value in itself, and that's important.
In addition to that, good leadership drives performance and results, which is more like obvious, important in a way, also for me.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
I mean, uh, we both know it, we've both seen it around us.
And 10 years ago, I received two researches based on 57,000 people like you and me that just confirms in data that good leadership more than doubles profit growth.
Uh, so there is an obvious kind of external and extrinsically driven motive, but I love what you say about this this intrinsic desire.
Uh people feel it when they are led well, and it's the key driver for motivation for success, for fun, and from for them staying or leaving the business.
Now I think it's a very complex theme because it's intrinsically related to humans.
Uh, we are not leading machines, we are leading humans, and I think everyone has a slightly different definition of what good leadership is.
I bet that these leaders, these audience members here on the call today would be very very curious to learn yours.
So, what does good leadership mean to you, Erling?
Yeah, I I now have to look at my sheep sheet, and then uh there are so many definitions, right?
But I uh I remember, I mean, we have we've discussed this before, and I think some of these things, I actually I'm not sure if this is a weakness, but uh I have to sit down and think actually.
But I would say something along the lines of it's the ability to inspire, guide and empower others toward a shared goal with integrity, clarity, and empathy.
That's one definition, quite generic, right, and quite broad, and I would like to add to that that to me at least it have to it have to also contain the ability to deliver results, and as you just spoke about the results should most likely be interpret in a relative way, meaning that it can't just be great results.
Uh, I heard this phrase, it's better for yeah, I think it was better.
It's better to be an idiot in a strong market than a genius in a weak market.
I've never heard that one.
Right.
Uh kind of being relative, if you get my drift.
Uh results.
I mean, you can have relative strong results if the market is out.
That that was the point of it.
But I mean, those things combine with results, and I think at least I can live happily with that definition of uh good leadership.
Yeah, thanks.
And how do you recognize leadership talent in a person?
Yeah, that's also an interesting one, right?
Because it's about humans and it's something you don't necessarily you can't really see it, but when you or I you can see it, but you you can't necessarily see directly that ah, Stefan, I recognize you on the street, there goes a great leader.
That it's not that simple, but you can you can sense it, I would say in a fairly young age with people.
I mean, we've discussed uh football, we've discussed rugby, you can see people already on the football pitch with leadership ability.
Um, I would argue at least.
Um you can see signs like the ability to inspire others, the ability to not be egoistic, the ability to think about the team as much as your own performance, or maybe even more, and I think you can also see quite often that you're good in what you're doing, in addition to that, that you like what you do.
I mean, because if you like what you do, most likely you will be quite good at what you do.
It it's it's not a one-to-one, but it's it's a strong correlation, and if you combine these things, yeah, with the and with the ability to inspire others to think about the team, I think at least that's that's a good start, uh, I would say, and and you can recognize these things in people, and then I guess as people become more senior, you would look for that, and some let's call it the more advanced things needed in an organization.
Do you recognize scalability?
Your understanding of an entire corporate package, your understanding of the of the departments.
I mean, in an ideal world, you have people running the various departments, sales and marketing.
Hopefully, the person running that understands enough tech to have a relevant discussion with the CTO, which again can talk to the CFO, and I mean that overall understanding of business and people, every now and then you recognize that as well, and then you're up for promotion.
Yeah, very good.
Very specific and clear traits that you've seen and that you're looking for to see leadership potential.
Now we touched already on sports as being one of the other fields that leaders in business in corporate in small companies can learn from.
To an extent.
I think there is another field called the military, where some components of leadership, if applied well and thoughtfully, can travel to the business world.
Albeit I would argue not everything and not every style you apply in the military really lends itself to good leadership in the business world.
So given that you've been you've had a military experience as well when you were a young man.
How would you compare those two worlds?
And what leadership elements could corporate learn from the military, and maybe even vice versa.
Yeah.
Um it's interesting.
I mean, I I think that you can make you can we we can have a quite broad discussion on this subject, or kind of narrow it down to leadership and leadership style in itself.
And I mean, um, some of the some of your questions, Stefans, they they deserve a bottle of wine and uh and um, but I'll I'll try to be a bit specific because I mean you can talk about kind of things that work in the army that you can translate, and that's like things like keep it simple.
It's a kind of it's hammered into you.
Keep it simple.
Uh I like that.
I try to keep keep things as simple as possible.
Whether that's a leadership style or not, I mean, most likely not, it's more like a philosophy in how to run an efficient organization.
I also think that all the drills you're doing in the military and so on, they are there because when things get really serious, you can't really stop and think.
It needs to be automated, and automation is extremely important.
And I also I mean, I picked up on that one and carried with me also that you you kind of can't run, you can't create a lot of processes where people have to think.
It needs to be automated, preferably by a process or a system, so we don't have to think at all.
That's the ultimate.
If you have to think about when a client says A, I need to say B and C, and if he then counters it B, then it's E.
I mean, you you know, you can't operate like that.
It needs to be or should be at least as automated as possible.
However, to get back to to not discuss absolutely everything, and for before we go there, I should also be very honest.
I mean, I did two years in the military.
That's not a military career, that's two years in the army.
Uh so I don't think I had never went to war college, I don't, I never went to officer training or anything like that.
But I I I spent enough time to to kind of understand military leadership.
And um, yeah, had the pleasure of serving in what I would describe, as everyone would describe their unit as Norway's finest, but ours, of course, truly were.
I had some great leaders, and one of the things I really like is this about sayings and quotes and things.
I mean, the Marine Corps, the US Marine Corps, they had this saying, every Marine a rifleman.
And I had exactly the same experience in my unit, it went from the head of the battalion, including the priest, down to our soldiers.
We are all infantrymen.
So you had you knew that your officer, he knew what you did as well as you did, right?
And he had been through the same specific training, he'd been through the same marches in the snow and the and the rain, and in the nice very small tent and all these things, and that creates a strong bond and it creates some commitment and a deep understanding that the guy telling you what to do, he actually knows what he's doing.
And I think in leadership, that is one thing that potentially should be copied more.
That leaders know on a deep level what the people reporting to them are actually doing, because not that's not always the case.
I mean, you've been in corporate life longer than me, but we all know that every now and then the people, a person gets a promotion, you shift the department, somebody's brought in from the outside, and there are tons of great reasons for this, right?
Because you need a new energy, you need new spark, you need somebody that's seen something else, new competencies, all these things.
But my take is a necessity, I would call it to give these people as deep a knowledge as possible of what the people reporting to you are actually doing.
Yeah, very good.
Very practical and transferable learning that I think could could transfer to to many companies one on one.
Let's look at a more recent time of your life and your career.
You've been promoted to CEO like five, six, seven years ago.
Again, remarkable in such a short time, 16 years from trainee to CEO.
Now, I think the role of CEOs has some exclusivity, it has a specific responsibility.
Because you are even even if based on my perception, Allen, you are very good at empowering, at distributing and sharing responsibility and accountability with others, you are the ultimate accountable for results, culture, strategy, so pressure to an extent, although I think ultimately you determine yourself how much pressure you put on yourself, but there is pressure.
Then based on my perception, there is one other particularity of the CEO role, which is you don't have peers.
Right?
Tua and Mats and Siv and all the other people in your leadership team, they have bosses, i.e.
you have direct reports, and they have peers.
You don't.
There is no second CEO next to you, right?
So with that in mind, maybe you could share with the team here with the audience one thing, the one thing you like the most about the role of a CEO.
And if you like to also share one thing you dislike the most about the role of a CEO.
Yeah, like the privilege of being able to impact the entire organization.
I would say that is um, yeah, that's a great privilege, and I enjoy that very much.
So, yeah, I mean that is one of the privileges, right?
I mean, if if I ask if somebody can show me something, they will show me something.
Uh and they they will at least pretend that they listen, uh, and hopefully they will they will listen.
And that that is to some extent, I guess, only myself or a person.
I mean, again, we have transparency, people collaborate, all these things, but this, yeah, that ability is what I like the most because at least I have it.
Uh, more people potentially have it as well, but at least I have it, the entire uh organization.
So that would be high.
Yeah.
And is there anything you dislike about your role?
I yeah, I mean, I I guess people would tell you that I can be lonely as a CEO and all these things.
I don't feel lonely.
I mean, we have a great relationship to the owners, I have a great group management, I have great colleagues.
Uh, it doesn't feel only.
Um, but of course, every now and then being the ultimate decision maker, you quite often, or at least every now and then, you find yourself in a position where somebody will be unhappy with the decision.
That's part of the job, and the reason why I am involved in the discussion, every now and then at least, is because it's a dilemma where there's some pain and there's some potential gain involved.
And I'm not really sure if that's yeah, you know, but that I find the most challenging, at least you have to let somebody down.
Two people coming with uh projects or two conflicting ideas.
Somebody wants us to go in that direction, somebody else wants us to go in the other direction, uh, and you don't you have to make a call because I mean if I don't make a call, nobody will make the call, uh, and a call has to be and this when you you sense the disappointment in people.
Obviously, you try to explain, and I you try to be rational.
I think rational is a better word than fair in a way.
Um I think all my colleagues would kind of really understand that we do this for the greater good of the company, that's the ultimate goal.
But yeah, I that that must be the one.
Yep, thanks.
Thanks for sharing this.
I can see also how this is um more kind of a discomfort, and um knowing you so well since since these three years, uh, you working in the PvP environment, me knowing some of the people you have worked with in your previous ownership uh in the Triton Fund, um, where I can see like I could even partly feel the relationships to an extent.
I'm not surprised you say I don't feel lonely, although that is a statement that is more frequently made among CEOs, you don't, because I think you somehow have a natural just that's the way you are, Erling.
You connect easily with everyone, right?
Um, and that goes back to when when we first met, even before our our Lightwolf experience in the interview, and I heard you share why you decided or or why you enjoyed having studied politics and history as a young man, because it gives you the ability to connect with everyone, right?
These two topics are broad, and I think this skill you had you probably always have had that.
Maybe already in your football team.
You you explore it in your studies and you you use it now, and I think that is why there is nothing you dislike, and particularly not the loneliness, because you you aren't lonely, you just reach out to your owner or you reach out to your team, and and that's not what bothers you.
But if anything bothers you, it's this need to make a choice, and it's probably at the heart of your success that you make choices, right?
And uh, citing the more experienced Steve Jobs, don't try to please everyone.
I can agree, I can agree more.
I mean, you can't.
That's uh that's a road to a bad place.
Yeah, you can't.
I I had the uh sheer coincidental honor and luck to work with him for a year, but he was in the room a few meters away when he said, Guys, don't try to please everyone.
If you want to please everyone, sell ice cream, yeah, exactly.
Right, but don't become a leader.
So um, but this remains unpleasant to an extent because you know that the decision you take will be liked by others more and by some not at all.
But that's that's your role.
Yeah, and if I may add to that, Stefan, I that's an observation from my side also, uh throughout these years that that's a quite common weakness, even amongst good leaders.
I think maybe that's one of the things that separates the good from the great, the ability to say no and to live with that discomfort because it's very easy to you know say yes and be liked by everyone.
So that I mean to me, that's always been kind of a clear separator good from great.
Uh the ability to learn to learn, to lead, sorry, in um well, learn also, obviously, that's a good thing.
But the ability to lead through um rough times, make the hard choices, make the hard calls, and if necessary, be the person that symbolizes that choice and be clear about the fact that I made that choice because I believe it's the right choice.
That's harder than not that you would believe, but it's harder than I used to believe for many people, also in quite senior leadership roles.
How did you develop the skill to say no?
I I mean, I've had the you know the great pleasure of having uh predecessors, so I've had the great pleasure of working for four three, four uh uh predecessors in in uh in Northstadt, and some of them had said yes, and some of them had been uh harder to interpret.
Uh, and one of them was a great naysayer, he had no scruples at all, he just said no, and it was a great experience, also when he said no to me, and I realized that when he said no and he explained it, I didn't really have a problem to live with it.
I think it feels it feels way worse to say no, I didn't to him.
He was like a no no expert, great guy, but he said no, and um it didn't kind of destroy my day.
I accepted it most of the times at least, and and respected him for it.
So um, yeah, let's let's call it an observation throughout the years from um from a great manager and a great leader.
Did he explain the why for his no?
Yes, most of the times he had uh a clear explanation about why there was a no.
Yeah, I like that.
Because it makes it so much easier to accept the no, even if I still disagree with the no, but I understand, and then I can accept.
Exactly.
Great.
Now, on this note, and in this PE environment you're in, I think I could already articulate a bit of it, but I'd like to hear from you and you know much more precisely.
You are developing yourself consciously, unconsciously, but successfully, Erling.
And your exits as a PE CEO with high multiples are testimony to your success.
How did you develop yourself into such a successful CEO?
Yeah, again, it's a good one.
Um, and I think this is also where maybe all of the traits of a good leader should come into play, which is humility.
So I'll try to be a bit careful.
First of all, about about the exits, it's it's uh it must be said that as for most CEOs.
I guess I I didn't do this by myself.
I didn't create, I did neither did I start nor did I create North.
I was I've been a part of this for many many years.
So that's kind of important.
It doesn't happen like it happened for us down to one man or down to group management or anything like that.
I mean, if you want to exit successfully, there's a number of indicators and numerous people that need to be involved, and the entire team basically have to be involved to deliver to create the results that's needed to exit the way we did.
So that's like the first.
How do you develop?
Again, I mean, back to my predecessors and not only the CEO predecessors, but I've had predecessors as key account managers, learned a lot from these guys back in the day.
As managing directors in one of our daughter companies, learned an enormous amount of things from from other managers in the systems.
And I think, or I hope at least that I have to some extent a capability to observe and copy with some pride.
And I think also one should be conscious about understanding that all people have their strength and all people have their weaknesses.
And if you do your very best to copy what's good, and you do your very best to avoid the weaknesses or the flaws or the not so great side of things, I guess you will develop.
Being exposed to things helps you see in the situation before that helps.
Gray hair gives you some flavors.
You don't have that yet, yeah.
That's way too young, but it's a bad camera, I guess.
If it's doesn't um very, very very reflected as always.
Now you have gone through more than one exit in the private equity environment.
I am working with maybe 15 CEOs in private equity environments.
Some of them remain energetic, like you.
Some of them get exhausted over time.
How do you keep yourself motivated to continue developing yourself over such a long time?
Yeah, that's a good one.
Some luck helps, I guess.
I love what we do, I love what I do.
That's it.
That's a good part, obviously.
And yeah, it's hard, I think, to come with one magic formula.
But I mean, and one should be a bit careful these days, I guess, with you know, commenting on people's work life balance and and these things.
And I mean, I I I don't I'm just being transparent and honest about what works for me.
Uh, I'm not sure if it works for everyone, but having done this for so long, having kind of been in our organization and our rhythm for so long.
I to me it's more like a lifestyle, and I I haven't given up on anything else, but for me, that lifestyle works.
It doesn't cost me anything to do something, be that in the evening or be that in on a Saturday.
I don't have these hard stops.
I know I mean you can talk to very successful people uh running companies 10 times the size of Northstadt, right?
Who I'm sure will say it's eight to eight or it's eight to whatever, and then I log off and I'm completely out of it.
That works, that's how I get my refreshment and energy and all these things.
I don't do that.
I uh there are people in the company working longer hours than me, at least spending time in the office longer than me, and I I guess uh apart from the office as well.
But I don't have a hard break between what is private and what is business, meaning that I could after we've had our conversation now, I wouldn't have a problem dealing with some private stuff for my kids.
I could drive them to their football practice, and then I could have a call with the be that the client or or be that a colleague uh without feeling any pressure to it, and for me that works, yeah.
And my experience with different private equity companies, different private equity funds, is they differ.
Yeah, sure, absolutely.
Um, the P environment is very different from the family owned businesses that we also serve, right?
My personal perception, Erling, right or wrong, while on the family side of business, effort is valued more, development is valued, and results matter, but you can compensate for some lack of results with enormous effort.
While on the other end of the spectrum in the PE world, my personal perception is that effort counts a bit less, development counts, but results count the most.
That was held for several years by a family office.
And I operated, if I don't remember anything, if I don't confuse the timeline here too much, I was managing director in Norway in part of their period, and I was chief operating officer in part of that period.
But of course, it's the CEO and has a tendency to be the CFO who gets the kind of most exposure and works closest with the owners.
And so we got private equity ownership in 19.
And I took over a CEO in 21.
And the pleasure of working several years with Triton and their deal team.
Fantastic experience, great people, all of them.
And we I learned a lot.
It was strength for the entire organization.
Everyone was exposed to them.
And I guess the entire organization was exposed directly, like me or indirectly.
And I think it's it's back to humans again, because I guess you can be lucky or unlucky in that environment.
Also, it depends a bit on the team.
We had a fantastic team, fantastic deal captain, and other board members.
And to me, it's a bit like the same.
Partially you get exposed to you know their way of thinking, their way of looking at the world, which was new at least to me.
But it's a bit like observing from peers and predecessors that you observe how these people think, how they operate, what they do, what they don't do, their strength, their non-strength, uh, if that's fair to say.
So one should always observe and listen.
That's at least my experience.
And then you will um you will reach a better place if you do that.
Even if it's I mean, even if it's all bad, at least you understand what bad looks like.
For us, it was not all great.
I mean, it wasn't like a big party for for years.
We had our we had our discussions to put it that way.
Um, but you listen, you try to observe, you try to understand, and you you reach a new stage.
And I think for us also, after moving hands from one PE to another, now Nalka, also a fantastic team, great people.
They yeah, they are a bit different from the Critten crew.
It's I think, yeah, they have different culture, they come from different backgrounds, all these things, but it's just another perspective, and you learn new things exactly the same.
Some of the things they say are due, is it you know, we learn in in each and every interaction.
You just have to be willing to learn and to yeah, copy or skill with pride or whatever the phrase is.
That's the way I think about it, at least.
Thank you very much.
Says a lot about your own perspective and your attitude to learning, as opposed to the differences in the PE owners themselves, right?
Because those people now listening, particularly to this part of our call who are running private equity funds, would be curious to learn from you.
But it seems like you're adapting, and you're just trying to steal the best from whatever is coming your way.
Uh, very interesting.
One last open question, and then I'd like to fire a few quick ones your way, if I may, Ernie.
Yeah, quick I am.
The the open one is it seems so simple, it's related to yours.
The statement you made earlier here about simplicity.
But I recently read an interesting book that just said it blunt and direct.
It reminded me of the times in my own career when I was in some form or fashion in successful teams, and it's related to focus.
And here is the quote.
Most companies do too many things.
Full stop.
How do you ensure that you and your company say no?
Often enough and to the right things.
Yes.
I had the fortune to hear that quote early on.
I think or an equivalent to the quote.
And there are people in the surroundings, like could be board members, private equity companies, their deal teams, clients, all these things who wants us to do other things.
Why don't you just do this?
And so I mean, why don't you just do that?
So it's very recognizable.
And it's also my observation about at least some other companies that they try to be all things to all men, uh, or do too much.
For us, we it doing what we are doing, it's very much in our DNA to be focused on the core.
And I mean, you met some of my colleagues, some of my great colleagues.
I hope you observe the same.
It's close to an obsession, not necessarily to say no, but to focus on the core, it's a constant focus on the core.
We also have to challenge that every now and then so we don't stand still.
But the core giving the world high quality data that is yeah, it's repeated so many times that it's almost becoming like uh an internal joke in a way, it's hammered into the DNA uh in Northstadt, and we we also tell ask ourselves the questions at least on a weekly basis when we have discussions, we always start Monday with a meeting in the group management.
Everyone gives an update on where we are, projects uh and updates from the markets and so on.
And this question when somebody comes uh with an idea, will it sell more data?
That has become a more and more important question, and if it's no, then you better have a good argument.
Yeah, this is a brilliant one.
Uh I once heard this quote in a completely different against sports-related environment from team New Zealand, America's Cup, beating uh the United States in their home waters, and the uh skipper Russell Cootz was asked, Why did you win?
And his answer was very similar to this question.
We focus on one simple question.
Is what I'm doing now making the boat go faster?
Exactly.
Very similar.
Uh will it sell more data?
I love the clarity, the power, and the simplicity of this question because it helps you.
Sure, it helps with it.
It helps you navigate and helps you say no.
Exactly.
With a very understandable rationale, right?
Very good, thank you.
So a few quick questions that we that I'm asking every uh guest I'm I'm allowed to have here with the desire for quick answers.
What is the best advice you ever received?
Learn and understand methodology and statistics, then you will get a job.
At least for professor at the university.
What do you what quality do you value most in leaders?
The combination of personal strength and humility.
What is your personal go-to to tour when things get stressful?
Exercise.
What book podcast or quote has impressed you most recently?
Impressed me the most.
Maybe I stray a bit off topic now.
I was inspired this very morning reading an article about Jamie Diamond and how he didn't walk around with his telephone because he wanted to have the ability to think without you know using his uh cell phone and to stay 100% on topic in meetings and encounters with clients and colleagues.
And to me that was yeah, that made me think and reflect.
Um I I have some still some learnings to do, and still some uh you know, some there's some room for improvement on that one, as as in so many other things.
Yeah, cool.
If you could change one thing about the world of work tomorrow, what would it be?
Today there's practically sip and zero incentives for them at talking for for Europe, depending a bit on which market, but I do believe that if there were benefits, real benefits, tax benefits, financial benefits, uh, which allow for more employees onto the ownership side, partially we'll get better results because it creates an even stronger uh ownership, uh, like a real ownership, and partially it could be at least one way of addressing inequality questions, which typically increases uh after deals are done and exits are exits are delivered.
Yeah, couldn't agree more.
It's a big one.
My first employer, probably a client of yours, a company called Proctrend Gamble.
Well-known uh player in the market.
At the time when I served in PNG, 99% of all employees were shareholders, and 25% of the total market cap was owned by employees.
Really?
So it's exactly your concept, and for sure, one of the reasons why I still feel ownership for that company today, 19 years after having left it, right?
So makes a lot of sense.
Final comment in this Lightwolf podcast interview series, Erling is always with my guest.
So there is thousands of people on this call.
Is there a message or a question?
I would like to share with them.
Yeah, if there's a message to to all you listeners out there, I think for me it would be that stay optimistic.
I'm very optimistic.
Uh, I'm even optimistic about the future for Europe.
I do believe that even if there are some you know dark clouds out there, we will prevail and there will be solutions, we will gradually move to a better place, and there are lots of business to be done, and there's lots of great opportunities out there.
So, yeah, hang in there.
What a wonderful way to conclude this conversation.
I love it.
It's been a big honor, a big joy, Erling, to have you here on the Lightwolf Podcast Show.
Not only as a human, first and foremost, as a man, as a as a person, it's always lovely to engage with you, and also as a leader.
It's been great to listen to your path to here.
It's been great to listen to clear, simple, profound, impactful learnings, tons of them.
So, in the name of thousands of people here, I say a big warm-hearted, heartfelt thank you for your time and for being our guest.
Thank you, Erling Erickson.
Thank you, Stefan.
Great pleasure, and uh very glad to be here.
Thank you so much for the invitation.
All the very best, and see you next time.