The visit and lecture were co-organized by the Norwegian Embassy and the Norwegian-Swedish Chamber of Commerce. Along with other guests such as the Ambassador of Norway, Aud Kolberg, faculty and staff from SSE, Tangen discussed what Sweden and Norway could learn from each other regarding education, entrepreneurship, and business, in his lecture titled “The Defining Moments - How to best prepare for the moments that define history”. 

Nicolai Tangen has an interesting and inspiring background. He started up a successful hedge fund and has a Master’s degree in art history and social psychology, as well as being a chef. He is also the owner of the world’s largest private collection of Nordic contemporary art, the Tangen Collection, with art stretching from the early modernists in the 1920s to the mid-1990s. He has also actively funded initiatives within arts and education through the AKO Foundation. 

The theme of Nicolai Tangen’s lecture was defining moments where he shared various events during his life that have played a key role in shaping his next steps.

“Some defining moments can’t be planned for, but you can still be prepared. What you need is grit, patience, education, and confident humility”, said Nicolai Tangen, as he gave a deeper explanation of what those four words really meant to him. 

One of the faculty members who joined the discussion and the lecture was Martin Carlsson-Wall, Director for the Center of Sports and Business:

“The Norwegian Oil Fund is a unique organization. They finance 25% of the entire Norwegian public sector at the same time as they are one of the largest investment funds in the world. As such, being a hybrid that combines both public and private sector logics is very interesting. I also found it exciting to hear about their work in integrating sports psychology into the investment processes. I think Swedish companies can learn a lot about from the sports world in terms of teamwork, individual resilience, and how sport organizations work with stakeholder engagement”, says Carlsson-Wall.

Nicolai Tangen (CEO Norwegian Oil Fund) and Lars Strannegård (President of SSE)